Privacy Agreement with eyes4earth

Your privacy is important to us. We respect any wishes you may have for confidentiality, anonymity and responsible use of information supplied.

We value your willingness to participate and share your experiences and observations. The information you submit and include on the various GoogleMaps is of course in the public domain and can be viewed by any visitor to the eyes4earth site. Naturally, we cannot accept responsibility for how this public information is used. But we’ll make every effort to ensure that usage of the site is moderated and adheres to a highly acceptable code of conduct.

Should you wish to share/submit observations and experiences with us but without having them displayed online then you can simply contact: matt@eyes4earth.org for further information.

The eyes4earth website also includes an option to a complete a more detailed survey about meaningful nature experiences. This information is for research purposes and the respondent’s personal identity is treated with strict confidentiality. Should you leave your email address in the survey, we may contact you to clarify specific information (about your experience) with you or seek your prior permission to use selected information in a certain context.

We use secure webhosting accounts and other security measures to protect our database and any information provided by members of our online community.

All email updates sent to subscribers come with the option to unsubscribe from the eyes4earth website at any time.

Your personal details will never be shared or disclosed to third parties for any reason.

Some information is used to improve the functionality of this site but this information is non-specific and does not include any personal data that could be used to identify you as a subscriber.

We trust this reassures you.  Any feedback or questions is welcome to be mailed to: info@eyes4earth.org

Privacy Policy for the eyes4earth survey

This online eyes4earth survey seeks to understand:
1. If and how meaningful nature experiences may influence people’s attitudes and behaviour toward the environment and their ‘connectedness’ with it;
2. How landscapes and environmental pressures (e.g. exotic species) may influence such experiences;
3. What relevance these experiences may have for nature education and related conservation strategies.

Please be assured that any information that is obtained in connection with this study and that can be identified with you will remain confidential and will be disclosed only with your permission or as required by law. Confidentiality will be maintained by means of a password protected database whereby only myself, as prime researcher, will have access. Your stories and information will be used to support research and may be publicly published (using an ‘alias’ of your choice) to enhance awareness/outreach activities but will be not be identifiably connected to you individually unless you have given permission to have your name associated with information.

This survey is anonymous. The record kept of your survey responses does not contain any identifying information about you unless a specific question in the survey has asked for this. If you have responded to a survey that used an identifying token to allow you to access the survey, you can rest assured that the identifying token is not kept with your responses. It is managed in a separate database, and will only be updated to indicate that you have (or haven’t) completed this survey. There is no way of matching identification tokens with survey responses in this survey.

You can choose whether to be in this study or not.  If you volunteer to be in this study, you may withdraw your consent at any time and discontinue participation without penalty.  You may also refuse to answer any questions you don’t want to answer and still remain in the study. The investigator may withdraw you from this research if circumstances arise which warrant doing so. You are not waiving any legal claims, rights or remedies because of your participation in this research study.

If you have any questions or concerns about the research, please feel free to contact: Matthew Zylstra, Principal Researcher (matt@eyes4earth.org). If you have questions regarding your rights as a research subject, please contact:  Ms Maléne Fouché [mfouche@sun.ac.za; +27 21 808 4622] at the Division for Research Development, Stellenbosch University, South Africa.

All the best,
Matthew Zylstra
Doctoral Researcher, Conservation Ecology & Entomology, Stellenbosch University