The ultimate collaboration: technology and conservation allying to restore nature - Vol 5 Sneak Peek
How technology can benefit wildlife conservation, and the ethical considerations which need to be accounted for.
Article by: Craig Dibb
Artwork by: Emma Dawson
As nature’s most prolific tool user, our history as a species has always been inextricably intertwined with technology.
That relationship has also come at a significant cost to nature, most notably since the industrial revolution, and we now find ourselves facing the dual nature crises of climate change and biodiversity loss.
Species extinction rates are at levels not seen in 10 million years and more than 1 million species are at risk of extinction.
For the most part, the driver for developing technology has mostly been for humanity’s own needs and desires, but re-focused, technology presents a powerful force to be harnessed in saving the planet and defending nature. As threats to biodiversity intensify, the integration of cutting-edge technology becomes crucial for effective conservation efforts.
Years ago, I remember reading a National Geographic article on Bryan Christy’s documentary series: Explore: Warlords of Ivory. A daring piece of journalism which saw Christy going undercover as an illegal ivory trader selling a fake ivory tusk with a concealed GPS sensor. He traced the contraband across East Africa into the black markets of the Far East and exposed how illegal wildlife trade funds some of Africa’s most notorious militias and terrorist groups. This article had a deep impression on me but at the heart of the story lay an impressive piece of technology.
A slow road to development
For so long, limited funding in the conservation sector has meant that research and development for technical solutions has been slow. Nonetheless, the few innovations that persevered, such as tagging and camera trapping, have had significant impacts on conservation.
In the case of camera trapping, conservationists were reliant on development coming from other industries, meaning a long and slow road to development.
From the early beginnings of plate photography and trip wires over a hundred years ago, the technology has now evolved to sophisticated digital cameras and LIDAR triggering mechanisms.
Many important discoveries have been made with the camera trap, including the first record of an Amur leopard in China in over 62 years and proof that the world's rarest rhino is breeding in the form of a photograph of a female Javan Rhinoceros with her calf.
The scale of online databases, aided by cutting edge AI and cloud tech, is constantly growing, with over 4.5 million camera trap records on the platform Wildlife Insights.
The success of the camera trap demonstrates potentially huge benefits of applying technology in the field of conservation but it also highlights the need to fast track the innovation journey.
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