Scientists Propose a Global Code of Conduct for Fieldwork and Biodiversity Research

Thousands of workplaces around the world operate under codes of conduct, yet the scientists who wade through mangroves, scale alpine ridges, and trawl the deep ocean have largely been left to improvise their own ethical rules. A new paper in Frontiers of Biogeography argues that this gap is overdue for repair. Drawing on consultations across the Global Earth Observation Biodiversity Observation Network (GEO BON) and partner organisations, an international group of researchers has synthesised a proposed code of practice tailored specifically to the realities of fieldwork in the environmental sciences, including ecology, biogeography, geology and allied disciplines.

The problem the authors identify is structural rather than trivial. Most existing scientific codes of ethics concentrate on employer-employee relationships, legal obligations such as animal experimentation rules, publication ethics, and data management standards. The Ethics Codes Collection, an archive of more than 2,500 codes and guidelines from over 1,500 organisations worldwide, some dating back to 1887, illustrates how extensively institutions have codified professional behaviour. Yet according to the new analysis, few of these documents explicitly address how field studies should actually be conducted: how researchers should treat local communities, handle wildlife, secure permissions, or behave toward one another in remote and sometimes hazardous settings.

The new code originated within the GEO BON community, which coordinates biodiversity observations across the planet, and was made available on the network’s website before being published more formally. Its development followed a deliberately consultative path. The drafters reviewed existing literature and sought perspectives from scientists representing a wide range of ages, genders, languages, cultures and ethnicities. An early draft was circulated for feedback within the Marine Biodiversity Observation Network (MBON) and the International Association of Biological Oceanography (IABO), revised, then circulated within GEO BON itself. A final version was deliberated by the GEO BON Steering Committee before acceptance.

Notably, the authors resisted pressure to expand the document into an exhaustive treatise. Some reviewers suggested elaborating particular sections, but the group concluded that a concise code was more likely to be widely read, digested and applied across a broad scientific community. They explicitly invite users to adapt and extend the code to fit their needs, disclaim any special moral authority, and suggest that emerging issues such as the use of artificial intelligence could be added by communities building on the framework. The code’s value, they write, will be judged by who adopts it and whether it changes the practice of science for the benefit of people and nature.

At its core, the code rests on three overarching principles: respect for people, respect for nature, and honesty in scientific practice. The first commits scientists to accepting diversity of age, gender, sexuality, race, origin, religion, ancestry, culture, social and economic status, and physical and mental ability, and to promoting equity in all professional transactions. The second commits them to sustainable use of natural resources and to minimising disturbance of living organisms and their environments. The third demands transparency of evidence, data, knowledge, know-how and ideas, a technical standard that underpins reproducibility and trust in published results.

From these principles the code descends into concrete behavioural guidance. Scientists are urged to be mindful and supportive of colleagues, to respect confidentiality and Indigenous cultural sensitivities, and to refrain from imposing political or religious ideologies on others. The code calls for active opposition to discrimination, harassment, bullying and misuse of power, and for adherence to the spirit and letter of laws and regulations where these are designed for the broader benefit of society. It also demands accountability: researchers should own their mistakes and oversights in professional practice, publications, peer review, and the collection and interpretation of data.

One of the code’s more striking provisions targets misinformation. Scientists are asked to oppose misleading presentations of evidence, including selective reporting that conceals governmental, industrial, scientific, social or environmental issues society should know about, and to actively correct the public record, including retraction of flawed work. The code further requires declaration of actual and potential conflicts of interest, honesty about the limits of one’s expertise, and support for colleagues disadvantaged by breaches of the guidelines. Mentoring, peer review, editing and meeting organisation are framed not as optional courtesies but as professional obligations that sustain the scientific enterprise.

The practices section translates ethics into fieldwork logistics. Researchers should prioritise methods with low impact on the well-being of people and nature, including non-lethal techniques for collecting data on species, and should minimise health and safety risks to themselves, others and the environment. Permission must be obtained from landowners, local communities, Indigenous Peoples and relevant authorities before fieldwork begins, and participants must be free to refuse involvement once risks are explained. Two provisions carry particular technical weight: researchers must avoid spreading species, including microbial pathogens, beyond their natural ranges, and should deposit physical samples such as specimens in herbaria, museums or national archives with rigorous metadata and appropriate permits so that other users can access them.

Publication guidance completes the framework. Findings and supporting primary data should be published accurately and promptly to enable transparency, reproducibility and replicability. Contributors and funding sources must be acknowledged, prior work cited, and the intellectual and material property of others respected, with permission sought before using third-party data. The code also addresses a growing concern in biodiversity science: the sensitivity of data that could enable harm, such as the locations of threatened species that might aid illegal collection, the spread of pests, or infringement of patents and copyrights. Editors and reviewers are asked to support ethical research regardless of whether it conflicts with their own beliefs or group consensus, and fabrication, falsification and plagiarism are flatly prohibited under established scholarly authorship guidelines.

The authors frame the code as a moral compass rather than a rulebook, suited to a discipline that has always thrived on controversy. Biogeography, they note, is built on field observations of wildlife in every environment, benefits from a diverse community that includes amateur naturalists, and has a history of challenging prevailing paradigms on questions such as assisted colonisation, de-extinction, conservation trade-offs and the exclusion of people from protected areas. Constructive tension, in their view, is a feature of good science, provided it is handled with sensitivity and respect. Whether the code achieves its ambition will depend on adoption by institutions and individual researchers worldwide, but it offers the environmental sciences something they have conspicuously lacked: a shared, field-tested statement of how to work with people, nature and evidence at the same time.

Subject of Research: A proposed code of conduct for ethical behaviour in environmental and biodiversity fieldwork

Article Title: A code of conduct for environmental and biodiversity scientists

Article References: A code of conduct for environmental and biodiversity scientists. (n.d.). https://doi.org/10.21425/fob.19.199542

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.21425/fob.19.199542

Keywords: code of conduct, biodiversity, fieldwork ethics, GEO BON, biogeography, research integrity, Indigenous data, misinformation, scientific publishing, environmental science, wildlife conservation, peer review