Reviewed by: Spoon River America: Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town by Jason Stacy Gregory Brown Jason Stacy, Spoon River America: Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2021. 234 pp. $27.95 (paper). In Spoon River America: Edgar Lee Masters and the Myth of the American Small Town, Jason Stacy states that he has "treated Spoon River Anthology like a historical subject" but cautions the reader that the work's "significance lies not only in its history but also in its enduring life as a book that people read" (173). Stacy's analysis of the text is sensitive to the literary aspects of Masters's work, and it is thus useful and engaging to literary critics and historians alike. Stacy begins by tracing two distinct origin myths of the American small town: the New England version and the midwestern one. The myth of the New England small town has roots that reach back before the American Revolution and defines itself as moral, industrious, and cooperative. The midwestern small town, on the other hand, is steeped in the frontier mythos popularized by Frederick Jackson Turner and emphasizes rugged individualism. These rival mythologies "both featured an established small municipality," but "the New England village served as a founding enterprise [of the nation] and thereby preserved original values" while the "Midwestern town was the result of a mythical frontier experience" (33). Both contrasted with urban centers such as New York City, which were portrayed as "dens of hypocrisy and vice" (11). Masters's family history intersected with both myths due to Illinois's patterns of settlement. On both sides of his family tree, Masters's ancestors moved into Illinois to distance themselves from slavery; however, Masters's branch of the family shifted their political sympathies to the South after the Civil War due to increases in federal power and taxation. Stacy notes that Hardin Masters, Edgar Lee's father, "sought to enlist on the side of the North" at the age of sixteen, but by the end of the conflict he [End Page 206] supported the South, and Edgar Lee was named after the famous southern general (38). Hardin Masters was haunted by his reputation as a southern sympathizer; rumors that he had been a Copperhead cost him prestige and business. This opprobrium, Stacy demonstrates, is the seed of the character of the exile, a major trope of Spoon River. In the central chapters of Spoon River America, Stacy synthesizes the familial and cultural currents that surround the creation of Edgar Lee Master's Anthology. As Masters was turning his attention away from practicing law and fully toward a literary career, he moved to Chicago, which had become an important cultural and literary center. There, Masters became acquainted with the "'Little Room,' an informal club of artists, social reformers, and philanthropists" (61). Among the members of the Little Room was Harriet Monroe, the future editor of Poetry; nevertheless, Masters was uncomfortable among this society and faulted them for what he perceived as "haughty exclusiveness" (61). Instead, cultivating an outsider status he would uphold for the rest of his life, Masters preferred the society of the more libertine "Press Club." Through close readings of several poems, Stacy identifies character types such as the moralistic fraud, the libertine, and the exile. The character of the exile fits well with Masters's conception of himself as both a Midwesterner and a populist in post-Civil War America. This character type was also key to the popular success of Spoon River Anthology. The necessity for the exile type was clear to Masters's contemporaries: Stacy quotes a review of Masters's subsequent book, Songs and Satires (1916), wherein T. S. Eliot notes that Masters requires a "personage … detached from himself in order to give his particular meditative irony its opportunity" (113). The detached, meditative tone of Spoon River Anthology, together with its popular if imitable style, allowed readers to take from the work what they wanted. Through the concluding chapters, Stacy demonstrates how the myths that led to Spoon River Anthology continued through the twentieth century. Disneyland commercialized the small town, and...

Reviewed by: Literature for a Changing Planet by Martin Puchner Greg Brown Martin Puchner Literature for a Changing Planet Princeton. Princeton University Press. 2022. 160 pages. martin puchner's Literature for a Changing Planet is an urgent call for rereading the stories that have shaped our world. Human beings have reached a point of tremendous environmental influence, collectively. Our actions will shape the biosphere from here on. The humanities play a vital role in the way we see the planet, but without a clear vision, which history and literature can provide, we will meet the coming dangers blindly. Puchner argues there is value in reading world literature ecologically from literally the beginning: The Epic of Gilgamesh. From this most ancient text, he draws familiar themes of civilization versus wilderness. Anyone familiar with the work will remember the praise of civilization's values, the equation of wandering and exile with grief, and the seduction of the wild man, Enkidu, into society. Tracing the interaction between the built and wild environments across "a number of foundational epics," Puchner next moves to the Odyssey's famous scene: Odysseus's defeat of the cyclops Polyphemus. Once again, the text contrasts and praises the Greeks' settled ways of life with the different, uncivilized manners of the giants. Puchner highlights the rhetorical purpose of Odysseus's tale, told as it is to a court upon whose graces he depends. These stories of civilization versus the wilderness persist across times and cultures. Consistent with his global focus, Puchner turns to another origin of literacy, Mayan literature. An independent invention of writing, so rare and nearly obliterated as to be virtually unknown compared to readers familiar with Odysseus or even Gilgamesh, "the Popol Vuh includes an account of the creation of humans" completely separate from that of Mesopotamia. There are intriguing differences, such as how the reverence for clay in brick-making Uruk is absent in the Popol Vuh, written by a culture that worked in stone. Yet this elaborate epic of Mesoamerica arrives at similar themes regarding the value of settled life and reverence of the staple crops of its region, just as The Epic of Gilgamesh and the Odyssey do. The centrality of resource extraction to urban societies' most basic stories repeats across space and time, independently. Puchner argues that this reveals something fundamental. At this point, Literature for a Changing Planet introduces one of its most challenging assertions: writing is deeply complicit in resource-extractive ways of living. The ancient texts of the world arise from settled ways of life; they facilitate the organization of labor and participate in empire-building; they defend their societies from outside forces, including those humans who were still living in nomadic communities or otherwise at large; and they define the rest of nature as wildernesses. Thus, reading world literature ecologically requires reading it subversively, against its grain. This assertion remains central to Puchner's argument and culminates in "a reading protocol" of seven principles "[drawing] on the insights of both [world literature and ecocriticism]." These principles range from bearing in mind that we are reading works in "a medium that is complicit with, and therefore most likely defensive of, settled life and the resource extraction required to sustain it" to recalling that "neither the canons of world literature nor world literature anthologies are neutral tools." Puchner insists that the complicity of literature with the causes of climate [End Page 76] crises is not a reason to discard it, but rather to read it carefully and to make room for orality as well as written literature. Literature for a Changing Planet places the invention of world literature in Weimar, January 31, 1827, when Goethe is reported to have said "the era of world literature is at hand." The forces of industrialization, colonization, and incipient globalization make this moment possible, having put into Goethe's hands literature from across the globe. This fact complicates Puchner's praise of world literature as having a greater chance of healing nature than narrow nationalist literatures. It seems at first glance to be a paradox, just as the complicity of writing itself undermines its ability to address the problem. After all, farmer and philosopher Wendell...

Comprehensive or general plans are long-range documents intended to guide future urban or regional land use, growth, and development. Structured and periodic monitoring and evaluation of plan implementation is important to identifying when plans should be revised or updated based on changed planning assumptions or conditions, but such monitoring is uncommon. In this study we present and illustrate a research-based method to evaluate general plan implementation for a case-study community located in central California. A community survey was combined with participatory mapping to assess continued public approval of key elements of the general plan: 1) residential growth, 2) community development needs, 3) preferred locations for development (spatial), 4) consistency of resident land use preferences with general plan categories (spatial), and 5) areas with the greatest potential for land use conflict (spatial). Over the five-year period following plan adoption, there was relatively little change in general resident preferences for residential growth or the perceived need for new types of urban development, with the exception of affordable housing; however, city approval of three large, mixed-use development projects, while nominally conforming to the plan, generated community conflict based on development scale and location. As a novel plan monitoring and evaluation method, a community survey combined with participatory mapping provides a means to assess consistency with plan assumptions, desired conditions, and goals and can proactively identify the potential for place-based conflicts among various interests to identify optimized community land use outcomes.

Today, various methods are applied to analyze the data collected through participatory mapping, including public participation GIS (PPGIS), participatory GIS (PGIS), and collecting volunteered geographic information (VGI). However, these methods lack an organized framework to describe and guide their systematic applications. Majority of the published articles on participatory mapping apply a specific subset of analyses that fails to situate the methods within a broader, more holistic context of research and practice. Based on the expert workshops and a literature review, we synthesized the existing analysis methods applied to the data collected through participatory mapping approaches. In this article, we present a framework of methods categorized into three phases: Explore, Explain, and Predict/Model. Identified analysis methods have been highlighted with empirical examples. The article particularly focuses on the increasing applications of online PPGIS and web-based mapping surveys for data collection. We aim to guide both novice and experienced practitioners in the field of participatory mapping. In addition to providing a holistic framework for understanding data analysis possibilities, we also discuss potential directions for future developments in analysis of participatory mapping data.

Consideration of social and cultural dimensions in coastal and marine planning has increased and ecosystem services provide important framing to investigate values and priorities associated with these systems. Research efforts in coastal communities offer insights on social dimensions of ocean and coastal management decisions, but questions remain about how demographics and geographic residence affect perceptions of marine resources and management. We conducted and analyzed a public participation geographic information system (PPGIS) mapping survey of Oregon residents to capture uses and perceived values of coastal and marine areas. We measured coastal values, explored regional differences in those values, and identified a suite of coastal and marine ecosystem services that Oregonians prioritize from the recently established marine reserve network. Examining respondent demographics, conservation values, and coastal geographic features, we discovered values varied by region in Oregon, with regions demonstrating distinct value orientations. Regional differences in value orientation highlight the importance of incorporating multiple interpretations of value into coastal resource communication strategies, and the consequence of coastal proximity on attitudes and values about coastal resources. Incorporating use (indirect and direct) and non-use (existence) values into a Total Economic Value framework revealed that participants prioritized indirect use (scenic, recreation) over direct use and existence values coastwide. Spatial variation of participant's use and value locations demonstrates the utility of participatory mapping in marine spatial planning efforts, both in documenting spatially explicit non-market values of coastal areas and identifying potential areas of conflict among coastal stakeholder groups. Within Oregon's marine reserve network, which was not delineated in the mapping exercise, value preferences diverged from coastwide averages, wherein existence values (biodiversity/wildlife, wilderness, etc.) were elevated above other categories.

Public participation in the form of public meetings and written submissions has been criticised as a democratic ritual that fails to give citizens a real voice in government decisions. Participatory mapping and community surveys are alternative public participation (PP) methods that can augment legally required processes for land use planning. To date, there has been little evaluation research comparing the information content generated by required PP processes and alternative PP sources with respect to local land use decisions. Using multiple development projects from a case study community, we analysed and compared information generated from three different sources of public participation: (1) formal public comment (written submissions), (2) responses to community survey questions, and (3) land use preferences generated from participatory mapping. We found public comment strongly supported development while results from survey questions and participatory mapping methods revealed community ambivalence. The differences in public opinion are attributed to two key factors: the representativeness of participants in the PP process and the specific methods used for measuring public opinion. Community surveys and participatory mapping generated more accurate and representative community information compared to the formal PP process which was characterised by lower participation and vulnerability to special interest manipulation. For local government decision makers, the political risk of broadening PP information appears high relative to the risk of inaccurately assessing public opinion thus limiting adoption of alternative PP methods such as participatory mapping.

Urban parks provide numerous cultural ecosystem services that are essential to the wellbeing of residents. However, our understanding of the key variables that determine the provisioning each of these services remains limited, affecting our ability to design greenspaces that provide the unique combination of cultural services required by local residents. Here, we identify variation in the effects of key spatial, environmental, park facility, and socio-demographic variables on the use of urban parks for different cultural ecosystem services, using Brisbane, Australia, as a case study. We completed a participatory GIS survey in which urban residents provided empirical geographic data on urban park visits for different activities and socio-demographic characteristics. These social data were then combined with park vegetation, park facility, and park spatial characteristic data to identify the key variables affecting use for four different cultural services: exercise, nature interactions, social interactions, and relaxation. We show that park characteristics and socio-demographic variables have different effects on all four cultural services. In particular, tree cover decreased park use for social interactions, exercise and relaxation only, and socio-demographics only influenced park use for social interactions and exercise. Among park facilities, the presence of amenities increased only exercise and relaxation visits. Variability in the effects of park characteristics among ecosystem services complicates the ability for urban park management to provide multiple cultural ecosystem services. Identifying and targeting specific variables associated with each ecosystem service is likely to be critical. Our study provides key insights into how to achieve and provide the unique set of cultural services that urban residents require.

The concept of “place” links people to their environment and is foundational to disciplines such as geography, environmental psychology, and urban studies. With growth in geographic information systems (GIS) in the 1990s, research began to operationalize place concepts using GIS to better inform land use decisions. After two decades, participatory mapping has emerged as an important method to identify place values. This article summarizes lessons from empirical research completed in diverse social and geographic contexts. Specifically, we find that mapped place values: (1) are best understood as relationship values, (2) reflect participant spatial/geographic discounting, (3) are closely related to place attachment and “sense of place” concepts, (4) are correlated with participant attitudes and preferences toward land use, (5) are predictive of land use conflict, (6) are associated with physical landscape features, (7) are generally stable over time, (8) are valid at multiple geographic scales, (9) exhibit greater similarity than differences across geographic areas and populations, and (10) show little evidence of actually influencing land use decisions. Despite research validity and the potential to improve social acceptability of land use decisions, place values will have limited social impact without elevating the importance of broader public participation in current socio-political systems.

Abstract Crowdsourced data can provide spatially explicit data on the contribution of nature to people. Spatial information is essential for effectively managing the diverse relationships that people have with nature, but the potential and limits of using crowdsourcing data to generate maps for conservation purposes need further research. Passive crowdsourcing tools include social media platforms where photos and user‐generated tags are shared among users, whereas active crowdsourcing, such as public participatory geographic information system (PPGIS), provides an online platform for mapping place attributes such as values, experiences and preferences. In this study, we assess the spatial information gained through using Flickr (a photo sharing platform) and PPGIS (an online mapping platform) platforms for conservation planning to understand differences and similarities on the spatial distribution of values captured by the two platforms, and to identify what environmental and infrastructure variables correlate best with the distribution of values. We test these tools in Southern Norway including protected areas and the surrounding zones. We analysed non‐spatial (using chi‐square and Spearman rank correlation) and spatial (using clustering, Maxent and distribution overlap) data to identify differences between the two datasets and the values represented therein. We found large differences in spatial distribution using these two datasets, with Flickr data concentrated outside the protected areas and near roads, whereas PPGIS provided more fine‐scale data on diverse values in locations inaccessible by roads within the protected areas. Flickr can be used for generating regional scale data of scenic landscapes or routes, but PPGIS performs better for management of nature qualities appreciated by different user groups within protected areas. We discuss the pros and cons of using each data source and when each dataset is more suitable to be used in protected area management. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.

Economic reform in China has resulted in rapid urbanisation over the past three decades, changing the urban and rural landscape dramatically. A large amount of farmland was developed, leading to conflict between construction demand and farmland protection. In response, the "Link Policy" was proposed in 2005 that seeks to concurrently preserve farmland while providing for urban expansion through land exchange. The effectiveness of the Link Policy has not been systematically investigated. The purpose of this study is to analyse and evaluate outcomes of the Link Policy objectives from both a participant and investigator's interpretive perspective. Ezhou, the first experimental city to implement the Link Policy in Hubei Province in central China, was selected as a case study area. Eight different communities in Ezhou were visited and 160 semi-structured interviews were conducted with resettled rural residents in March 2016. A combination of interviews and investigator field observations were used to evaluate the Link Policy objectives. The results show that participants recognize and support improving rural living conditions and coordinating urban-rural development, but the Link Policy failed to achieve the objectives of preserving farmland, protecting farmers' land use rights and interests, and facilitating agricultural production. Participants perceived concentrated resettlement communities to be more efficient in land use compared to more expansive rural settlements, but vacant apartments for commercial use in resettlement areas account for a large proportion of land suggesting inefficiency in the land exchanges. We suggest policy changes to achieve more successful implementation of the Link Policy.

past generations and underrepresented in contemporary literature. Through imagining the future and unburdening the past, Wang vividly captures the now. Alison Wellford Cedar Crest College Pola Oloixarac Dark Constellations Trans. Roy Kesey. New York. Soho Press. 2019. 202 pages. Dark Constellations is a slim novel that takes on large questions about evolution (both biological and technological) and interspecies hybridization. Stretching from the Canary Islands to Argentina and from 1882 to 2024, Argentine author Pola Oloixarac’s mind-bending story forges connections between a nineteenth-century plant biologist exploring the properties of a hallucinogenic plant and a twentyfirst -century Argentine hacker, who uses his understanding of computer viruses to undermine a massive state-sponsored surveillance program. Narrated in a detached way that seems at once mystical and scientific, this story about the transformations of terrestrial life and their consequences for humanity ’s future jumps back and forth between the nineteenth and twenty-first centuries, inviting the reader to recognize time as a fluid dimension, fluid (according to this story) like the barriers between insects, plants, animals, and machines. Just as plant biologist and explorer Niklas Bruun discovers and experiments with Crissia pallida (and writes in his journals about “secret pacts between species”), so does hacker-genius Cassio Liberman Brandão da Silva explore the furthest reaches of the developing internet of the 1980s and ’90s to ultimately arrive at a hypothesis of viral mutations and human-machine interaction. When he teams up with coworker Piera to develop a biological virus that can jump into and control machines (such as surveillance cameras), the reader can understand what Piera means when she thinks about “the biological cycle of technology” and its ecosystems. But Dark Constellations is about more than hypotheses and experiments and theories about what unites disparate species. It is also about the history of political tensions between Brazil and Argentina, the stratification of classes in South America and the world at large, power dynamics between the sexes, the rise of techno-elites in major cities, and mass surveillance on a global scale. Indeed, this novel raises so many issues that, at times, it seems overwhelmed by them. Even one of these subjects could provide enough fodder for novels double the size, and that is what makes Dark Constellations at once fascinating and frustrating . It is most certainly ambitious but too short to address everything that the author brings up and attempts to tease out. These burgeoning ideas, which make the novel a kind of verdant analog to its own subject matter, are rendered in beautiful English by Roy Kesey, whose translation reveals the complex layers of scientific, mystical, and technological vocabulary that Oloixarac so fearlessly wields. The author’s analytical approach to the similar vocabularies of biological and technological systems —her examination of how words like “penetration,” “viral,” and “exchange” commingle in certain contexts—make Dark Constellations a wonderfully bizarre mix of scientific treatise, hallucinogenic history, and cyberpunk thriller. Rachel S. Cordasco Madison, Wisconsin Reimagining a Place for the Wild Ed. Leslie Miller & Louise Excell with Christopher Smart. Salt Lake City. University of Utah Press. 2018. 352 pages. Arranged in four thematic parts, Reimagining a Place for the Wild is a collection of essays and narratives that ranges across disciplines and occupations. It includes contributions from a diverse group: naturalists and ranchers, environmental lawyers and easement agents, writers and biologists. Some of these authors approach the issue of wildness from opposing angles, but all are genuinely concerned for a sustainable and wild North American West. Though the collection is unmistakably regional, many of these same concerns are repeated wherever civilization and nature must coexist; this book appeals to a much WORLDLIT.ORG 87 Books in Review Renato Rosaldo The Chasers Durham, North Carolina. Duke University Press. 2019. 144 pages. Renato Rosaldo established himself as an ethno-poet with his groundbreaking 2013 volume The Day of Shelly’s Death, which combined poetry, ethnography, and photographs to tell the moving story of his wife’s fatal accident decades earlier in Philippine backcountry. Now he gives us a new collection , also multidisciplinary. The Chasers is a deep-reaching account, in prose poems, of the high school gang to which the poet belonged when he...

The concept of residential housing preferences has been studied across multiple disciplines, with extensive literature supporting both stated and revealed preference methods. This study argues that both preference types, stated and revealed, should be assessed concurrently to achieve a more comprehensive understanding of residential housing choices. To provide evidence, this research used findings from a public participation GIS survey that identified the stated housing preferences associated with three categories of urban residents, which were called urban "tribes". We implemented an analytical framework using fuzzy modelling to relate stated preferences with revealed preferences for the same individuals using empirical data describing the urban structure in Tampere, Finland. Following an analysis of the relationships between residents' revealed preferences and urban structural variables, we examined the consistency of stated housing preferences with revealed preferences. The results show considerable mismatch between the stated and revealed preferences for the urban tribes that were examined i.e., the preferred housing environment was significantly different from the actual living environment. Further, the stated preferences showed disequilibrium within the current structure of the housing supply in Tampere. The findings can have important implications for housing policy making in Tampere. Further, the use of a novel fuzzy model approach demonstrated a flexible and tolerant method for working with imprecise and variable social data to capture subtle differences. Finally, this study elaborately discusses the remaining limitations and suggests how they should be addressed in future research.

Geographic citizen science has much potential to assist in wildlife research and conservation, but the quality of observation data is a key concern. We examined the effects of sampling design on the quality of spatial data collected for a koala citizen science project in Australia. Data were collected from three samples-volunteers (n = 454), an Internet panel (n = 103), and landowners (n = 35)-to assess spatial data quality, a dimension of citizen science projects rarely considered. The locational accuracy of koala observations among the samples was similar when benchmarked against authoritative data (i.e., an expert-derived koala distribution model), but there were differences in the quantity of data generated. Fewer koala location data were generated per participant by the Internet panel sample than the volunteer or landowner samples. Spatial preferences for land uses affecting koala conservation were also mapped, with landowners more likely to map locations for residential and tourism development and volunteers less likely. These spatial preferences have the potential to influence the social acceptability of future koala conservation proposals. With careful sampling design, both citizen observations and land use preferences can be included within the same project to augment scientific assessments and identify conservation opportunities and constraints.

We conducted a statewide survey of forestry employers and forestry students in three California universities to assess whether forestry degree programs are providing students with the knowledge and skills needed for contemporary forestry careers. The survey contained a comprehensive list of general skills and technical competencies identified from previous research. We clustered skills and knowledge items into five groups: professional skills, biophysical sciences, land management, human dimensions, and current issues. Results indicate that whereas forestry programs at California universities serve different student populations, student perceptions on the importance and preparation in their forestry education were similar. Both employers and students identified professional skills as most important, especially behaving professionally, ethically, and communicating effectively. However, using an importance–performance analysis, we found that land-management skills should be the focus of curriculum improvement.

Nature-based tourism is increasingly encouraged to support local socioeconomic development in and around protected areas, but managing protected areas for tourism could challenge existing park uses associated with self-organized outdoor recreation and local resource use. We used a web-based Public Participatory Geographic Information System (PPGIS) to identify the most important places and values of local, domestic, and international visitors to Jotunheimen National Park and Utladalen Protected Landscape in Norway. Scenic and recreation values were prioritized by all groups, but local users mapped more values relating to hunting, fishing, gathering and cultural identity. While the three user groups overlapped in some places, we found that they self segregated to some extent. Our study affirms the importance of spatially explicit analyses to support protected area management. Understanding the spatial distribution of values held by different user groups can aid in designing tourism management strategies that minimize intergroup conflict.

Effective wildlife conservation requires consideration of ecological and social factors, including social acceptability of conservation actions. Using the threatened koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) as a case study, we demonstrate a novel, socio-ecological approach for identifying conservation opportunity that spatially connects landscapes with community preferences to prioritize koala recovery strategies at a regional scale. We conceptualize conservation opportunity as the spatial integration of three sustainability criteria—ecological potential, social acceptability, and economic feasibility. The social acceptability criterion was assessed using a crowdsourced spatial survey that identified spatial preferences for koalas and land uses that impact koala conservation. As a novel approach, we addressed important research questions regarding the design, collection, and analysis of crowdsourced mapping data for identifying socially acceptable conservation opportunities. Public preferences for koalas were mapped closer to home, in higher suitable koala habitats than expected, were more pronounced in conservation and natural areas on public lands, and were mapped less frequently in modified agricultural landscapes. When the multiple criteria (ecological, social, and economic) were included in the conservation assessment, we found the social acceptability criterion exerted the greatest influence on spatial conservation priorities. The systematic assessment of social criteria for conservation using spatial surveys provides information that can be integrated with ecological information to prioritize conservation opportunities. Potential enhancements include expanding survey recruitment efforts and using alternative social data collection methods to achieve greater geographic and socio-demographic representation, and augmenting the economic feasibility assessment with private property values and transaction data from voluntary conservation agreements with private landowners.

Public participatory mapping is a method of crowdsourcing where the lay public can contribute spatial information for a range of applications including conservation planning. When used to collect wildlife observation data, participatory mapping becomes a type of “geographic citizen science” that involves collaboration with members of the public. While the potential of crowdsourcing to assist in wildlife conservation appears to be large, the quality and validity of the observational data collected remain a key concern. In this study, we examined the quality and validity of spatial data collected in a public participatory mapping project implemented in northern New South Wales (Australia) in 2018 where the public was asked to identify and map the location and frequency of koala (Phascolarctos cinereus) sightings using an internet mapping application. The iconic koala is a nationally-listed threatened species and has wide public recognition, making it an ideal test of our approach to examining the value of citizen science for wildlife. We assessed the validity of koala observation data from two perspectives of validity-as-accuracy (positional accuracy and data completeness) and validity-as-credibility (characteristics of spatial data contributors). To assess validity-as-accuracy, we analysed the distribution of citizen observations of koala sightings compared to an expert-derived probability distribution of koalas (likelihood model). To assess validity-as-credibility, we analysed the survey data to determine which participant characteristics increased the credibility of observational data. We found significant spatial association between crowdsourced koala observations and the likelihood model to validate koala locations, but there was under-reporting in more rural, remote areas. Significant variables contributing to accuracy in koala observations included participant knowledge of koalas, age, length of residence, and formal education. We also compared the crowdsourced results to a field-based citizen science koala observation project implemented in the same region and found crowdsourced participatory mapping provided comparable, if not superior results. Crowdsourced koala observations can augment field-based koala research by covering large geographic areas while engaging a broader public in conservation efforts. However, effective geographic citizen science projects require a significant commitment of resources, including the creation of community partnerships, to obtain high quality spatial data.