topic: Technology And Conservation

topic: Technology And Conservation

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On foot and by drone, radio tracking helps rehabilitate pangolins in Vietnam
- Conservation NGO Save Vietnam’s Wildlife is employing radio tracking to follow rehabilitated pangolins rescued from the illegal wildlife trade, even in difficult terrain and when the animals burrow underground.
- Tracking these pangolins on foot and using a novel radio telemetry drone has not only allowed the organization to assess the survival of released pangolins, but also improved the team’s knowledge of the secretive animals’ behaviors and habitat needs.
- However, this radio-tracking work is vulnerable to funding challenges, as the expectation that conservation work result in published papers can make it difficult to find long-term funding for basic equipment like radio tags.

Scientists explore nature’s promise in combating plastic waste
- Since 1950, humanity has produced more than 8.3 billion metric tons of plastic. Most has ended up in landfills or the environment. Now, scientists are working on biological solutions to address the plastic pollution crisis at every stage of the material’s life cycle.
- Innovative new filters built from naturally occurring ingredients can capture micro- and nanoplastics in all their diverse forms. These filters could remove plastic contamination from drinking water, and prevent microplastic pollution in industrial and domestic wastewater from reaching rivers and oceans.
- Plastic-degrading enzymes, isolated from microbes and insects and engineered for efficiency and performance in industrial conditions, can break plastics down at the molecular level and even be used to turn plastic waste into new useful chemicals.
- Biological solutions are being developed for a range of pollutants, not just plastics. But this technological research is still young. Crucially, we must not allow solutions for existing pollutants to make us complacent about the impact of new chemicals on the environment, or we could risk making the same mistakes again.

AI model maps global tree canopy heights in hi-res, with carbon counting in mind
- Scientists have used high-resolution satellite images to create a map of global canopy heights, and to also develop an AI model that can predict canopy heights.
- Tech company Meta collaborated with nonprofit organization World Resources Institute to develop the open-source map and model.
- While the map aims to establish and serve as a baseline for conservation initiatives, the AI model could be used to predict canopy heights in areas where high-quality data aren’t available.
- Canopy height is an important indicator of forest biomass and aboveground carbon stock, and is used to measure the progress of forest restoration efforts.

Drone cameras help scientists distinguish between drought stress & fungus in oaks
- Scientists have used remote sensing, spectroscopy and machine learning to detect sick oak trees and distinguish between drought stress and oak wilt, a fungal disease.
- A recently published study describes how researchers established a link between physiological traits of trees and light reflectance to monitor the progression of symptoms in trees afflicted by oak wilt and drought.
- They used the data to build a predictive model that can identify symptoms and detect sick oaks 12 days before visual symptoms appear.
- Oaks are vital for climate regulation and carbon sequestration; however, the trees face threats to their survival because of a fatal fungal disease as well as the worsening impacts of climate change.

New technologies to map environmental crime in the Amazon Basin (commentary)
- Environmental crimes like land grabbing, illegal deforestation, and poaching hinder climate action, deter investment in sustainable practices, and threaten biodiversity across major biomes worldwide.
- Despite challenges such as vast territories difficult to police and weak rule of law, new technologies like geospatial and predictive analytics are being leveraged to enhance the detection and disruption of these activities.
- Innovative approaches, including public-private partnerships and AI tools, show promise in improving real-time monitoring and enforcement, although they require increased investment and training to be truly effective, argue Robert Muggah and Peter Smith of Instituto Igarapé, a “think and do tank” in Brazil.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily Mongabay.

New online tool is first to track funding to Indigenous, local and Afro-descendant communities
- The Path to Scale dashboard is the first online tool developed to track all funding for Indigenous peoples, local communities and Afro-descendant peoples’ forest stewardship and land tenure.
- It’s already highlighted several trends, including that disbursements globally have averaged $517 million per year between 2020 and 2023, up 36% from the preceding four years, but with no evidence of increased direct funding to community-led organizations.
- Although information gaps exist based on what’s publicly available, Indigenous leaders say the tool will be useful to track progress and setbacks on funding pledges, as well as hold donors and organizations accountable.
- According to developers, there’s an increased diversity of funding, but it’s still insufficient to meet the needs of communities.

Unseen and unregulated: ‘Ghost’ roads carve up Asia-Pacific tropical forests
- A new study indicates that significant networks of informal, unmapped and unregulated roads sprawl into forest-rich regions of Southeast Asia and the Pacific.
- Slipping beneath the purview of environmental governance, construction of these “ghost roads” typically precede sharp spikes in deforestation and represent blind spots in zoning and law enforcement, the study says.
- The authors underscore that the relentless proliferation of ghost roads ranks among the gravest of threats facing the world’s remaining tropical forests.
- The findings bolster a growing momentum toward the development of AI-based road-mapping systems to help conservation biologists and resource managers better keep track of informal and illegal road networks and curb associated deforestation rates.

New FPIC guide designed to help protect Indigenous rights as mineral mining booms
- In the face of growing demand for critical minerals, Indigenous organizations developed a guide to help Indigenous communities implement their free, prior and informed consent (FPIC) when investors visit their lands for potential mining projects.
- Of the 30 metals and minerals needed to feed these technologies, about 54% are on and near Indigenous and peasant lands, according to a study published in Nature.
- The guide helps communities mold the FPIC framework to their governance and value systems and provides them with a “menu of options,” including preparations in advance of investor meetings, how to work through the negotiation process, steps to consider after a decision and a framework to agree on benefits of a project.
- By not following the FPIC process, companies open themselves up to operational, political, legal, reputational and investment risk when Indigenous activists protest their activities, a legal expert says.

Smaller population estimate underscores urgency of saving Cao-vit gibbon
- A recent survey based on “vocal fingerprinting” puts the total population of Cao-vit gibbons at just 74 individuals, down from previous estimates of 120.
- Researchers say the lower number represents more precise data, not an actual decline in gibbon numbers.
- However, habitat loss and hunting, along with a slow rate of reproduction, have pushed Cao-vit gibbons to the edge of extinction.
- Reforestation and establishing protected forest corridors are key to increasing population numbers, while inbreeding remains a concern for the small population.

To detect illegal roads in remote areas, AI comes into play
- Scientists have deployed an artificial intelligence model to identify and detect roads in rural and remote areas.
- The model was trained to analyze satellite images and pick out the roads within them; according to a recent study, it managed to do this accurately eight times out of 10.
- Road construction has increased drastically in recent decades, with 25 million kilometers (15.5 million miles) of paved roads expected to be built by 2050.
- Illegal roads, which fall outside the purview of environmental governance, often cut through dense forests and cause harm to the biodiversity living in fragile ecosystems.

Mini radio tags help track ‘murder hornets’ and other invasive insects
- Our increasingly interconnected world is moving insect pests around the planet, introducing invasive species that threaten agriculture and local ecologies.
- But tech is fighting back: Researchers have developed radio-tracking tags small enough to attach to invasive yellow-legged hornets in the U.K. and Europe, allowing scientists to find and destroy their nests.
- Researchers are now deploying this technology in the U.S., to address yellow-legged hornets in Georgia and northern giant hornets in the Pacific Northwest.

Gundi tool gets conservation hardware and software talking the same language
- A new open-source platform aims to help conservationists and protected-area managers seamlessly integrate data between hardware and software tools.
- Currently being used at 600 sites, Gundi takes data from different sources — wildlife trackers, camera traps, acoustic monitors — transforms them into a common format, and sends them to different destinations for analysis.
- Gundi was developed with the goal of helping reduce the time and effort required to figure out compatibility issues between different conservation technology tools.

Mongabay Data Studio: Revealing nature’s hidden stories through data (commentary)
- High-quality data journalism serves as a powerful tool in revealing complex environmental issues, transforming raw data into compelling narratives that illuminate the hidden stories behind the numbers.
- Ultimately, high-quality data journalism empowers citizens, policymakers and activists with the information needed to make informed decisions, driving meaningful action towards environmental sustainability and conservation. Through meticulous data analysis and creative storytelling, environmental journalism can thus significantly amplify its reach and impact, guiding society towards a more informed and conscientious stewardship of the natural world.
- To this end, last month we announced Mongabay Data Studio which aims to strengthen our data journalism capabilities.
- The initiative supports data journalism across all of Mongabay’s languages, bureaus, and formats, including investigations, news reporting, videos, and social media visualizations. It is structured to operate across various topics and geographies, enabling comprehensive data journalism integration in all our work. It aims to elevate our storytelling by incorporating and utilizing more data as a foundational element for new stories.

New trackers bring prairie dogs’ little-known underground life to light
- Researchers have deployed a new tracker that helps them monitor prairie dogs and track their movements underground.
- The tracker uses sensors, including accelerometers and magnetometers, and combines them with GPS technology to enable researchers to retrace the trajectories of the animals.
- Prairie dogs dig up complex burrow systems and spend most of their time underground, making their movements elusive.
- During initial trials, researchers were able to use the trackers to reconstruct the trajectories of prairie dogs while they were underground.

New funding boosts AI-enabled wildlife identification project in Australia
- An artificial intelligence project to identify native species from camera-trap images in Australia has received a A$750,000 ($492,000) grant from the government.
- The project by the conservation nonprofit Australian Wildlife Conservancy has already trained the AI model to identify 44 species from camera-trap images, from native animals such as kangaroos and dingoes, and invasive ones like cats and foxes.
- With the new funding, the team at AWC aims to scale up the model to be able to identify 120 species; the model can also be applied to alert land managers about invasive predators that are harmful to native species.
- Camera traps continue to be one of the most widely used technologies for biodiversity surveys, but the analysis of the thousands of images generated by camera traps remains a major bottleneck.

On Kaho’olawe, new technology could restore a sacred Hawaiian island
- The small Hawaiian island of Kaho‘olawe is a sacred site for Indigenous Hawaiians, who used it for navigational training, religious ceremonies, and fishing.
- But the island has faced decades of ecological destruction due to invasive plants and animals, erosion, and bombings as a test site by the U.S. military.
- A new conservation project has successfully tested a novel method using AI-equipped camera traps and an aerial drone to collect images of invasive cats, which have destroyed the island’s seabird populations, in dangerous and difficult-to-access parts of the island.
- But funding for the work on Kaho‘olawe remains scarce, and the drone project is now on hold as local organizations seek further funding to deal with the feral cats.

Find the manatee: New AI model spots sea cows from images
- A new computer model developed by engineers at the Florida Atlantic University uses deep learning to count manatees in images captured by cameras.
- The model has been trained to identify manatees in shallow waters, and can be used to identify where they aggregate, which can, in turn, be helpful to plan conservation actions and design rules for boaters and divers.
- However, the model can’t yet distinguish between adults and calves, or between males and females, both of which are details that are vital for conservation and research purposes.
- The engineering team says it plans to continue training the model in the months ahead, while also working with biologists to get their feedback on how to improve it further.

‘We’re doing so much with so little’: Interview with WildLabs’ Talia Speaker
- The use of technology for conservation and wildlife monitoring increased in recent years, with camera traps and remote sensing being the most popular tools, a report has found.
- The report by conservation technology network WildLabs also found that artificial intelligence was highly ranked for its potential impact, but was ranked low in terms of current performance because of accessibility issues.
- Marginalized groups, including women and people from lower-income countries, were found to face disproportionate barriers to accessing resources and training.
- “The motivation behind this research was to capture the experiences of the global conservation technology community, and to speak with a united voice,” says Talia Speaker, who led the research.

New tool aims to help palm oil firms comply with deforestation regulations
- A new online tool launched by web-based monitoring platform Palmoil.io aims to help companies check their compliance with deforestation regulations for palm oil.
- PlotCheck enables companies to upload plot boundaries without having to store it in the cloud, thereby working around concerns on data security and privacy.
- The tool analyzes the plot for deforestation based on publicly available satellite data; it also displays data on historical deforestation in the plot as well as palm oil processing mills in the proximity.
- “The output is going to be a statement which companies can submit to authorities to prove that their shipment is deforestation-free,” said Leo Bottrill, founder of Palmoil.io.

We need a better understanding of how crops fare under solar panels, study shows
- In agrivoltaics, farmers grow crops beneath or between solar panels.
- Proponents say the technology can help achieve clean energy goals while maintaining food production, but experts caution that careful analysis and guidelines are needed if we’re not to compromise agricultural production.
- A new synthesis of previously published studies finds that overall crop yields decline as the amount of land covered by solar panels increases.
- This ground cover ratio is a convenient, easily measured and reproducible metric that can be used to predict crop yields and better evaluate agrivoltaic systems.

A Mekong island too tiny for industrial farming now points to Vietnam’s future
- In the decades following the U.S. war in Vietnam, the Vietnamese government championed intensive farming methods that boosted rice harvests and turned the country into an export powerhouse.
- While much of the Mekong Delta was reshaped to support intensive farming, the coastal island of Con Chim was deemed too small to be worth installing the necessary dikes and sluice gates, leaving farmers there to continue traditional patterns of wet and dry season agriculture and fishing.
- Now, in an era dominated by climate concerns, Vietnam plans to scale back rice farming and shift to more nature-based agricultural practices. Once a forgotten backwater, Con Chim now stands as a rare guidepost to a more sustainable agricultural future.
- This story was produced in partnership with the Global Reporting Program at the University of British Columbia’s School of Journalism, Writing, and Media.

AI and satellite data map true scale of untracked fishing and ocean industry
- A new study shows that more than 75% of industrial fishing activity and almost 30% of transport and energy activity in the oceans has not been tracked by public systems, revealing a significant gap in global observational data.
- The study, led by Global Fishing Watch, used AI to analyze 2 petabytes of satellite imagery collected between 2017 and 2021, providing unprecedented insights into hidden fishing hotspots and offshore energy infrastructure development.
- The research highlighted the potential of combining AI with Earth observation data to gain a more comprehensive understanding of ocean activities, which is needed to manage and improve the sustainability of the $2.5 trillion blue economy.
- The open-source code developed during the study can help inform policy for safeguarding ocean ecosystems, enforcing laws and identifying renewable energy expansion sites, the study authors said.

Conservation X Labs announces merger with AI nonprofit Wild Me
- Conservation technology company Conservation X Labs has announced a merger with Wild Me, a nonprofit that focuses on using artificial intelligence for conservation purposes.
- The two organizations plan to combine their resources and expertise to ramp up the use of artificial intelligence to prevent the sixth mass extinction.
- The merger comes at a time when AI’s role in biodiversity monitoring and conservation has seen rising popularity.
- According to a press statement by Conservation X Labs, the company will “integrate Wild Me’s technology into its product offerings.”

‘No end in sight’ for potential of conservation tech: Q&A with Megan Owen
- For the past seven years, the conservation technology lab at the San Diego Zoo Wildlife Alliance has been working to develop and deploy technology that can automate the collection and processing of wildlife data.
- Running a tech lab in a zoo has the benefit of providing scientists with a setting where they can use the wildlife in their care to validate the data and calibrate the technology.
- Team members at the lab are also working to develop and mentor the next generation of conservation technologists who can keep up with the rapidly evolving field.
- Making the technology “low-cost and accessible, fixable, deployable and programmable” continue to be some of the challenges that the team is working to overcome, according to SDZWA vice president of conservation science Megan Owen.

‘Shark dust’ helps researchers ID threatened species in Indonesia fish trade
- Researchers have developed a new tool to identify a wide range of threatened and protected sharks being processed at fish factories in Indonesia.
- The method relies on DNA analysis of “shark dust,” the tiny fragments of skin and cartilage swept from the floors of fish-processing plants and export warehouses.
- From 28 shark dust samples collected from seven processing plants across Java Island, they found the genetic sequences of 61 shark and ray species.
- About 84% of these are CITES-listed species, meaning there are official restrictions in place on the international trade in these species.

Where do illegal lion parts come from? A new tool offers answers
- To trace wildlife parts to their source populations, researchers at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign developed a web tool, the Lion Localizer, which uses DNA testing to pinpoint the geographic source of contraband lion parts.
- Its creators say the DNA-based tool is a “valuable resource for combating lion poaching, by rapidly identifying populations that are newly targeted, or that are being targeted most aggressively by poachers.”
- Most of the illicit trade feeds demand from outside the continent; demand for lion parts is high in China and Southeast Asian countries like Laos and Vietnam.
- Despite being user-friendly, the Lion Localizer can sometimes fail to generate useful information in some cases, for example where there are multiple potential source populations or because the database used to generate matches is incomplete.

A lithium ‘gold mine’ is buried under one of Europe’s last heritage farming systems
- The hilly Barroso region of northern Portugal has been recognized for its centuries-old and “globally important” farming system that combines agricultural biodiversity, resilient ecosystems and a valuable cultural heritage.
- But the region is also home to what’s believed to be one of Europe’s largest deposits of lithium, an element that will be critical in the ongoing clean energy transition, with EU and Portuguese officials saying mining projects in Barroso will be key to securing domestic supplies of the metal.
- Residents and environmental activists, however, warn the mines will scar the landscape, contaminate the water, erode the soil, disrupt local livelihoods, and deprive them of communal lands.
- Yet even as they continue to oppose the planned mines, the state can declare lithium projects to be of strategic public interest to force residents to lease the lands needed for the mining projects.

Tropical deforestation increases even as a few hotspots see respite, new data shows
- Emissions from deforestation in tropical forests rose by 5% in 2022, even as temperate forests strengthened their role as carbon sinks, according to data from a carbon mapping tool developed by nonprofit CTrees.
- According to the data, emissions from deforestation saw a dip in Indonesia and the Congo Basin in 2022; in Brazil, however, emissions continued to rise through 2022, and only started dropping this year.
- The JMRV platform uses satellite imagery and machine learning to map forests and non-forest lands around the world to monitor forest cover, carbon stocks and emissions.
- In addition to broader global data, the tool can also help local jurisdictions monitor and verify their carbon stocks to keep track of their emissions-reduction progress under the Paris climate agreement.

Growing rubber drives more deforestation than previously thought, study finds
- A recently published study has used high-resolution satellite data to show that deforestation linked to rubber cultivation is much higher than previously thought.
- Deforestation for rubber in Southeast Asia, which produces 90% of the world’s natural rubber, was found to be “at least twofold to threefold higher” than earlier estimates.
- The underestimation of rubber-linked deforestation has led to gaps in policy setting and implementation when it comes to managing rubber cultivation, the study says.
- While synthetic rubber, made from fossil fuels, accounts for the most of the rubber produced today, rising demand for rubber overall drove the expansion of rubber plantation areas by 3.3 million hectares (8.2 million acres) from 2010-2020.

New platform offers toolkit for companies to prove their eco claims
- As governments around the world consider new regulations that would require corporations to track their impacts on biodiversity, a new platform called NatureHelm provides companies and individual landowners with a tool to track indicators of ecosystem health.
- The tool analyzes various databases and scientific papers to find relevant local biodiversity targets and automatically pulls in data from remote tools, such as camera traps, to track them.
- NatureHelm also provides consulting to help companies choose the best tools to track biodiversity targets, and produces annual reports that allow companies to show how different metrics change over time and in response to conservation actions.

New AI model gives bird’s-eye view of avian distribution at vast scale
- An artificial intelligence model is helping researchers use bird-sighting data to estimate their presence at a given time and location.
- Developed by researchers at Cornell University, the model makes predictions on when and where species of birds in North America might occur throughout the year, providing information that could be vital for conservation purposes.
- The model was trained using billions of data points from eBird, an online portal and database where birders can record the observations they make in the field.
- The researchers are now working to train the model to get estimates on abundance of species as opposed to only getting information on their presence or absence.

Galápagos waters yield massive deepwater corals in latest biodiversity find
- Researchers have found two new deepwater coral reefs, including one that spans more than 800 meters, or half a mile long, in the waters around the Galápagos Islands.
- They were discovered through the process of mapping the seafloor in Galápagos Marine Reserve with laser scanning technology.
- The reefs displayed a diversity of stony coral species and other organisms such as crustaceans, sharks and skates.
- The discovery of these two reefs occurred six months after the first discovery of deepwater reefs in the waters of the Galápagos Islands.

To keep track of salmon migrations in real time, First Nations turn to AI
- Partnering with First Nations, a new interdisciplinary study proposes harnessing artificial intelligence and computer-based detection to count and produce real-time data about salmon numbers.
- Monitoring their population when they return to the rivers and creeks is crucial to keep tabs on the health of the population and sustainably manage the stock, but the current manual process is laborious, time-consuming and often error-prone.
- Fisheries experts say the use of real-time population data can help them make timely informed decisions about salmon management, prevent overfishing of stocks, and give a chance for the dwindling salmon to bounce back to healthy levels.
- First Nations say the automated monitoring tool also helps them assert their land rights and steward fisheries resources in their territories.

Betting on biodiversity: Q&A with Superorganism’s Kevin Webb & Tom Quigley
- Superorganism is a newly launched venture capital firm, touted to be the first that’s dedicated to addressing the biodiversity crisis.
- The firm aims to support startups that are developing and deploying technology to prevent biodiversity loss and protect nature.
- The firm’s early portfolio includes companies that are working to tackle extinction drivers and finding solutions that lay at the intersection of biodiversity conservation and climate change mitigation.

Can digital twins help save the Amazon? (commentary)
- Spread across highland forests, tropical steppes, and low-lying floodplains — all of which are affected by varying degrees of human influence — the Amazon is a complex ecosystem. Yet, it remains inadequately mapped.
- Considering the degree of threat facing the Amazon and its global importance, it is critical to develop better methods for monitoring and comprehending this ecosystem.
- Carlo Ratti, the director of MIT’s Senseable City Lab, and Robert Muggah, the co-founder of the Igarapé Institute, argue that creating a “digital twin” of the Amazonian ecosystem could potentially serve as a means to aid its preservation while fostering a regional bioeconomy.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Can aquaculture solve the Mediterranean’s overfishing problem?
- In the Mediterranean, 73% of commercial fish stocks are fished beyond biologically sustainable limits.
- Part of the strategy to reduce overfishing promoted by the General Fisheries Commission for the Mediterranean, a regional fisheries management organization, is to promote the expansion of aquaculture, which is growing rapidly.
- However, most fish farms in the region produce carnivorous species, causing concern among experts and NGOs about the risk of worsening the burden on wild marine stocks to produce enough feed.

Meet Japan’s Iriomote and Tsushima cats: Ambassadors for island conservation
- Two rare subspecies of leopard cat, the Iriomote cat and Tsushima cat, can be found only on the Japanese islands they’re named after. With populations hovering around 100 individuals each, the cats are the focus of Ministry of the Environment-led conservation measures.
- The Iriomote cat has adapted to its isolated ecosystem by developing a more diverse diet than other felids. Following its well-publicized discovery in the 1960s, the cat has become an enduringly popular symbol of the island’s nature, and locals eagerly assist in conservation efforts.
- The Tsushima cat has faced habitat degradation caused by deforestation, canal construction and, most recently, ravenous deer. As the islands’ human population declines, local farmers are working to preserve the wet rice fields that help support the cat population.
- On both Iriomote and Tsushima, roadkill accidents are a major threat to the low wildcat populations. Conservation centers on the islands aim to raise driver awareness by providing crowdsourced info on cat sightings, posting cautionary signs at cat crossing hotspots, and educating locals and tourists.

Sound recordings and AI tell us if forests are recovering, new study from Ecuador shows
- Acoustic monitoring and AI tools were used to track biodiversity recovery in plots of tropical Chocó forest in northwestern Ecuador.
- The study found that species returned to regenerating forests in as little as 25 years, indicating positive progress in forest recovery.
- Acoustic monitoring and AI-based methods proved to be powerful and cost-effective techniques for assessing biodiversity levels in restored forests, including insects and animals that don’t vocalize.
- The authors hope these methods make biodiversity monitoring more transparent, accountable, and accessible to support land managers and market-based conservation mechanisms that rely on forest restoration, such as payments for ecosystem services.

Nepal’s tiger conservation gets tech boost with AI-powered deer tracking
- Endangered tigers in Nepal heavily rely on spotted deer as their primary prey, making their conservation crucial.
- Researchers in Nepal are using vertical cameras and AI technology to track and profile individual spotted deer (Axis axis), similar to the methods used for tigers.
- However, the project has faced challenges, including low recapture rates and difficulty in distinguishing individual deer in the wild.

Taking the global pulse of biodiversity monitoring: Q&A with Andrew Gonzalez
- A group of scientists have put forward a proposal to set up a global network that centralizes biodiversity monitoring and facilitates seamless sharing of data.
- The group wants its proposed Global Biodiversity Observing System (GBiOS) to function similarly to the network of local weather monitoring stations across the world, whose data are used to analyze and monitor climate change.
- While the technology being used to monitor biodiversity has become more sophisticated over the years, there still exists a void in getting different communities to work together to address the broader challenges in dealing with the biodiversity crisis.
- “We would not only federate people who are working together more effectively, but also fill many of the gaps in the data that currently exist in the biodiversity field,” Andrew Gonzalez, who is leading the proposal for GBiOS, told Mongabay.

Applications open for Airbus’s ‘Satellites for Biodiversity Award’
- The second edition of the “Satellites for Biodiversity Award” has been announced by the Airbus Foundation and the Connected Conservation Foundation.
- The two organizations are accepting applications until Dec. 15 for an award to support the use of high-resolution satellites for monitoring, tracking and protecting global biodiversity.
- Winners will receive access to Airbus’s high-resolution Pléiades and Pléiades Neo satellites, along with access to global mapping software from Esri and funding of $6,000.
- Previous winners include a project to map elephant habitats in Sai Yok National Park in Thailand, and community-led efforts to use drones and satellites to save tree kangaroos in Papua New Guinea.

New online map tracks threats to uncontacted Indigenous peoples in Brazil’s Amazon
- Mobi, a new online interactive map, draws information from public databases, government statistics and field observations to paint a comprehensive picture of the threats that uncontacted Indigenous peoples face in the Brazilian Amazon.
- The exact location of uncontacted communities is deliberately displaced on the map to avoid any subsequent attacks against them from those who engage in illegal activity in or near their territories.
- The tool can help Indigenous agencies deploy more effective protective actions to fend off threats such as diseases and environmental destruction, which can wipe out vulnerable populations.
- Activists hope the platform will help create a vulnerability index that ranks uncontacted populations according to the severity of threats against them, which can promote stronger public policies.

Climate change detectable in daily rainfall patterns, deep-learning model finds
- Researchers have developed a deep-learning AI model that predicts how global warming is affecting daily precipitation patterns around the world.
- Using the model, scientists found that every year since 2015 daily rainfall deviated from natural variability at least 50% of the time as a result of rising temperatures.
- Research has long focused on climate change’s long-term impacts such as annual temperature increase or precipitation rates.
- However, studies in recent years have observed how rising temperatures are altering daily weather patterns as well.

How hot are the desert tortoises getting? iButtons help find the answer
- Researchers are using a button-shaped device to gather data about desert tortoises (Gopherus agassizii) and their habitats in the Mojave Desert in Southern California.
- Using iButtons, the researchers are trying to understand how hot the tortoises get, and the temperatures that they prefer in the burrows where they spend most of their time.
- Identifying the critically endangered species’ temperature preferences is an urgent task: the tortoise faces threats to its survival from various quarters such as rising temperatures, habitat loss, and attacks by predators.
- With this research, scientists say they hope to find habitats that are safer and where the thermal conditions are suitable for the long-term survival of the tortoises.

Protected areas a boon for vertebrate diversity in wider landscape, study shows
- A new study reveals that protected areas in Southeast Asia not only boost bird and mammal diversity within their confines, but they also elevate numbers of species in nearby unprotected habitats.
- The researchers say their findings back up the U.N.’s 30×30 target to protect 30% of Earth’s lands and waters by 2030.
- The findings indicate that larger reserves result in more spillover of biodiversity benefits into surrounding landscapes. The authors call on governments to invest in expanding larger reserves over the proliferation of smaller ones.
- Conservationists say that while expanding protected area coverage is part of the solution, serious investment in management and resourcing for existing protected areas is a matter of urgency to ensure they are not simply “paper parks.”

Taking up the cause of red pandas: Q&A with actor and activist Dayahang Rai
- Dayahang Rai, a popular Nepali actor, shares his passion and challenges for red panda conservation, as an ambassador for the Red Panda Network, an NGO working to save the endangered animal in Nepal.
- Rai says he’s been inspired by nature since childhood, and that working on red panda conservation is his way of giving back to nature by reaching out to a wide audience to convey the urgency of the situation.
- He adds that while he has limited scientific knowledge of the species, he understands that red pandas are at risk of disappearing due to human activity, such as illegal hunting for their pelts, and unplanned road construction through their habitats.
- In an interview with Mongabay ahead of International Red Panda Day, Rai talks about prospective avenues for getting the conservation message out, and his plans to visit red panda habitat areas soon to see them in the wild.

Sensing tech used in oil pipelines can also track Arctic sea ice, study shows
- Scientists have used undersea fiber-optic cables in the Arctic to remotely track the presence and extent of sea ice.
- Sea ice is usually monitored with the help of satellites; however, the lack of high-resolution images and the low frequency of data collection makes it difficult to do in-depth analysis.
- Using a method commonly employed to monitor oil pipelines and highways, the scientists looked for changes in signals sent down a fiber-optic cable in the Beaufort Sea that would indicate the presence of sea ice.
- While promising, the method can’t yet be used to measure the thickness of sea ice or to determine how far the ice extends to either side of the cable.

With fewer birds seen on farms, scientists try listening for them
- Scientists in the U.S. Midwest have piloted a methodology that combines satellite imagery and audio data to study and monitor birds in croplands.
- While remote-sensing technology helped researchers understand the attributes of the habitat, bioacoustic data aided them in identifying the birds that live there.
- Biodiversity monitoring on working lands often doesn’t get a lot of attention due to the logistical hurdles involved in accessing these often privately owned areas.
- The methods used by the scientists involved engaging with farmers and landowners to put up audio recorders in an effort to be more collaborative.

Mongabay Explains: How high-tech tools are used for successful reforestation
- This Mongabay Explains’ episode is part of a four-part Mongabay mini-series that examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency.
- Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- Advanced computer modeling, machine learning, drones, niche models using data, robotics and other technologies are helping to restore hundreds of millions of hectares of lost and degraded forest worldwide.

In the chain of species extinctions, AI can predict the next link to break
- Scientists at Flinders University in Australia have developed a machine-learning model that predicts which species are at risk of extinction if another species is removed from an ecosystem or an invasive one is introduced.
- Trained on data on how species interact with each other, the model could serve to alert conservation managers on which vulnerable species to focus on, the developers say.
- They tested the model successfully in Australia’s Simpson Desert, where it accurately predicted which species invasive foxes and cats preyed on.
- However, the shortage of data on species interactions, along with the possible biases that arise, are gaps that still need to be filled in the model.

Where are the giraffes hiding? Predictive tracking tech points the way
- Researchers have combined tagging technology, satellite data and machine learning to create a model that predicts the potential locations of unknown populations of reticulated giraffes in Africa.
- The model also predicts suitable habitats where giraffes could be moved to for conservation purposes.
- Reticulated giraffes are endangered, with their populations declining due to habitat loss triggered by deforestation, urbanization and agricultural expansion.
- Findings from the model have estimated huge swaths of suitable habitats in Kenya, Ethiopia and Somalia; they’ve also contributed to the translocation of 14 giraffes to Angola, from where the animals were driven out by conflict years back.

Machine learning helps researchers identify underground fungal networks
- Researchers are using remote-sensing technology and machine-learning algorithms to map and predict the presence of mycorrhizal fungi in ecosystems around the world.
- The Society for the Protection of Underground Networks (SPUN) is an initiative that aims to map the distribution of fungal networks to spread awareness and advocate for their protection.
- Mycorrhizal fungi form symbiotic relationships with plants, serving as a vital interface for transferring water and nutrients from the soil while also storing massive amounts of carbon underground.
- SPUN is also working to provide financial and technical support to researchers and local communities to help them map fungal networks in their home countries.

When wildlife surveillance tech ‘watches’ people
- Conservation technologies such as camera traps, drones and acoustic sensors, are playing a greater role in protecting endangered species, preventing poaching, finding rare plants, tackling forest fires, and monitoring changes in forests and oceans.
- However, researchers and communities say these technologies are also increasingly playing a role in human surveillance, infringing on privacy, exasperating human conflicts with conservation, and posing serious social and ethical implications through their use.
- As conservation technologies increasingly monitor people much the same way CCTV cameras do, their use must be subjected to similar ethical guidelines of other public surveillance tech — which they lack, say researchers.
- Some researchers have drawn up checklists of best practices, such as getting consent from nearby communities, being transparent about how the technology will be used, not using human images opportunistically, and using tech only when there’s no alternative, less-intrusive way of collecting data.

‘Immense potential’ in tech: Q&A with Wildlife Drones CEO Debbie Saunders
- Drones have long been used to visually document and monitor wildlife, but an Australian startup is using the technology to listen for radio signals emitted from tagged wild animals.
- Wildlife Drones combines drone technology with radio telemetry to allow scientists and researchers to track the movements of birds and mammals in the wild.
- The technology, which has already been used in Vietnam, Australia, New Zealand and the U.S., enables researchers to expand the area they can monitor while tracking multiple animals at the same time.

Genetically engineered trees stoke climate hope — and environmental fears
- U.S. climate technology startup Living Carbon has been developing genetically engineered poplar trees that it says can absorb more carbon – a potential tool in the climate crisis.
- Some experts say the company lacks long-term field data and is rushing to commercialize its “supertrees,” potentially putting other species at risk.
- Despite such concerns, Living Carbon is going ahead and planting mixed forests that include its GE trees, funded by carbon offsets.

XPRIZE Rainforest finalists named for top conservation technology award
- The California-based XPRIZE Foundation that organizes competitions incentivizing innovations in health, energy and other sectors, has announced the six finalists for its rainforest biodiversity competition.
- Aimed at developing novel technologies for biodiversity mapping, XPRIZE Rainforest comes with a $10 million prize.
- Mongabay staff writer Abhishyant Kidangoor attended the semifinals in Singapore last month and spoke with Peter Houlihan, executive vice president of biodiversity and conservation at XPRIZE, to learn more about why the competition was launched and how, as Houlihan says, it has become a movement.

Vietnamese rice farmers go high-tech to anticipate a low-water future
- Since the 1970s, Vietnam’s “rice-first” policy facilitated the construction of an elaborate series of dikes and dams that allowed farmers in the Mekong Delta to flood their fields to allow for multiple harvests per year.
- Now, in the face of climate change impacts, seawater intrusion, upstream dams and new government policies that mandate water conservation, farmers in the delta need to find ways to reduce their water consumption.
- In one pilot project, university researchers have teamed up with local farmers to implement a technique called alternate wetting and drying (AWD), supported by a smartphone application that allows farmers to save water and reduce emissions.

Virtual fences can benefit both ranchers and wildlife
- Virtual fencing manages livestock using GPS-linked collars to train animals to stay within a set boundary, similar to an invisible dog fence.
- Coupled with the removal of existing barbed-wire fencing, it could open up whole landscapes for wildlife by removing injurious barriers for migratory herds, reducing mortality from fence strikes for numerous bird species, and protecting sensitive habitats from trampling by cattle.
- Virtual fences are easily moved with a tap on an app, and can be used to improve pasture management through rotational grazing, reduce wildfire risk, and other benefits.
- These systems are cheaper than building and maintaining physical fences, and are already in use in the U.S., U.K., Australia and Norway.

Tag team effort brings tech to aid leatherback turtle conservation
- In Puerto Rico, scientists and conservationists are deploying drones and satellite tags to gather data about leatherback sea turtles.
- Leatherback sea turtles, the largest species of turtles in the world, have seen their populations decline due to poaching, habitat loss and bycatch in fishing nets.
- Two teams are now collaborating to use drones to identify nesting sites in Maunabo in Puerto Rico.
- They’re also tagging the animals to understand more about their migration patterns once they leave the nesting beach.

New Tree Tech: Real-time, long-term, high-tech reforestation monitoring
- This four-part Mongabay mini-series examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency. Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- Many people see reforestation as a quick fix to the climate emergency, but tree-planting projects often fail to put in place the monitoring programs needed to track newly planted forests. Traditionally, forest monitoring has been done by hand, one tree at a time, which is extremely expensive and time-consuming.
- Satellites are mapping and remapping the entire planet daily, providing real-time data that can be used to monitor forests remotely. Drones can fly over or through forests to collect data on tree growth, bridging the gap between on-site measurements and distant satellites.
- Sensors can be installed to monitor individual trees directly, while people can collect and analyze the data electronically from a safer and easier-to-access location. Multiple sensors can form a distributed network that returns detailed information on the growth of each tree within huge reforestation plots.

Drones improve counts of rare Cao-vit gibbon, identify conservation priorities
- A survey using drones has come up with a more accurate, albeit smaller, population estimate for the critically endangered Cao-vit gibbon in the border region between Vietnam and China.
- Researchers emphasize the lower estimate isn’t the result of a population decline, citing the discovery of new gibbon groups.
- The finding, they say, “feeds into our assessments of how viable the population is [and] helps us decide what conservation actions are the most urgent.”
- The survey is the latest to underscore the “limitless” utility of drones and their growing importance in wildlife surveys and wildlife research in general.

New Tree Tech: Cutting-edge drones give reforestation a helping hand
- This four-part Mongabay mini-series examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency. Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- Restoring hundreds of millions of hectares of lost and degraded forest worldwide will require a gigantic effort, a challenge made doubly hard by the fact that many sites are inaccessible by road, stopping manual replanting projects in their tracks.
- Manual planting is labor-intensive and slow. Drone seeding uses the latest in robotic technology to deliver seeds directly to where they’re needed. Drones can drop seeds along a predefined route, working together in a “swarm” to complete the task with a single human supervisor overseeing the process.
- Drone-dropped seed success rates are lower than for manually planted seedlings, but biotech solutions are helping. Specially designed pods encase the seeds in a tailored mix of nutrients to help them thrive. Drones are tech-intensive, and still available mostly in industrialized countries, but could one day help reseed forests worldwide.

Biological field stations: Indispensable but ‘invisible’
- Biological field stations are critical to conservation research and rewilding efforts, yet they’re often overlooked in discussions of global environmental policy.
- Beside their visibility problem, reduced funding is a major challenge for most research stations, yet their impact has been measurable in places such as southwestern Peru and in Costa Rica.
- Joining the Mongabay Newscast to discuss the importance of field research stations — and the conservation successes they’ve fostered in nations like Costa Rica — is wildlife ecologist and director of Osa Conservation, Andrew Whitworth.
- “With the climate and biodiversity crises, we need field stations more than ever, yet they’re often under threat of being closed,” Whitworth says in calling for greater philanthropic support for this global network of research hubs.

New Tree Tech: Data-driven reforestation methods match trees to habitats
- This four-part Mongabay mini-series examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency. Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- To create healthy, diverse ecosystems, native tree species need to be identified that will thrive at each unique site within a habitat. But with more than 70,000 tree species worldwide, gathering and analyzing the data needed to understand species’ needs, habitat preferences and limitations is no small feat.
- Environmental niche models use data on climate, soil conditions and other characteristics within a species’ range to calculate a tree’s requirements. Artificial intelligence helps sort through vast data sets to make informed predictions about the species suited to an ecosystem, now and in a warmer future.
- Biotechnology company Spades uses laboratory testing of tissue samples from plant species to quantify what growing conditions a species can tolerate and to identify its optimum growing conditions.

New Tree Tech: AI, drones, satellites and sensors give reforestation a boost
- This four-part Mongabay mini-series examines the latest technological solutions to help tree-planting projects achieve scale and long-term efficiency. Using these innovative approaches could be vital for meeting international targets to repair degraded ecosystems, sequester carbon, and restore biodiversity.
- Current forest restoration efforts fall far short of international goals, and behind the hype lies a string of failed projects and unintended environmental consequences that have left a bad taste in the mouths of many investors, politicians and conservationists. Projects are often expensive and labor-intensive.
- Applying cutting-edge technology to the problem is helping: Advanced computer modeling and machine learning can aid tree-planting initiatives in identifying a diverse set of native species best able to thrive in unique local conditions, today and in a warming future.
- Drones are revolutionizing large-scale tree planting, especially in remote and inaccessible locations. Once trees are planted, satellite-based and on-site sensors can help monitor young forests — offering long-term scrutiny and protection often missing from traditional reforestation initiatives, and at a lower cost.

Sounds of the soil: A new tool for conservation?
- Researchers are discovering that listening to the soil can be a way to understand biodiversity belowground without having to overturn every bit of the land.
- Studies have shown that soils of restored forest areas have both more complex sounds and more critters than soils of degraded sites.
- Soils of intensively managed agricultural lands, also appear to be quieter, indicating that soil sounds could be a proxy for soil health.
- Some researchers are also using sounds to identify distinct species in the soil, which could open up lots of possibilities for both pest management and wildlife conservation.

Air pollution sensors found to store crucial biodiversity data
- A team of scientists have discovered that two air quality monitoring stations in the U.K. also collected DNA samples that could benefit biodiversity monitoring.
- Scientists analyzed DNA samples trapped in the two air pollution sensors and identified 180 taxa of mammals, plants, birds and invertebrates.
- The findings signal the presence of a trove of biodiversity data hidden in air pollution sensors around the world.
- The sampling and analysis of airborne DNA is a relatively new methodology to survey biodiversity; experts say further studies are required to determine its wider applications.

New digital tool maps blue carbon ecosystems in high resolution
- The Blue Carbon Explorer, a digital tool developed by the nonprofit Nature Conservancy and the Earth-imaging company Planet, combines satellite imagery, drone footage and fieldwork to map mangroves and seagrass in the Caribbean, Papua New Guinea and Indonesia.
- The tool aims to help scientists, conservationists and governments gauge mangrove health and identify areas in need of restoration.
- The Blue Carbon Explorer comes at a time of growing interest in blue carbon ecosystems as potential nature-based solutions for climate change.

Competing for rainforest conservation: Q&A with XPRIZE’s Kevin Marriott
- The semifinal testing for a $10 million competition to identify technology that automates the assessment of rainforest biodiversity is underway in Singapore.
- The five-year competition is organized by California-based nonprofit XPRIZE Foundation.
- From robotic dogs to drones and novel methods to gather environmental DNA, 13 teams are competing for a place in the finals next year.

Woodpeckers for fire recovery? A new online tool tells you how
- An online tool maps and predicts the presence of black-backed woodpeckers (Picoides arcticus) in newly burned forests in California.
- The tool aims to aid fire managers in incorporating the protection of these birds into their efforts to revive burned forests.
- Black-backed woodpeckers thrive in the diverse ecosystem left behind by wildfires, but fire suppression efforts and salvage logging often disturb their habitats.
- Through the case study of black-backed woodpeckers, the tool aims to illustrate how wildlife conservation and pyrodiversity (the variation in which fires burn landscapes) should be incorporated into fire management efforts around the world.

A Twitter bot tracks meat production in the Brazilian Amazon
- An online tool developed last year by the NGO Global Witness aims to monitor and expose deforestation linked to the indirect supply chain of Brazilian meat company JBS.
- Brazil Big Beef Watch, a Twitter bot, uses satellite data and cattle transit permit data to identify whether a ranch where deforestation was detected is part of JBS’s supply chain.
- Environmentalists have often criticized JBS, the world’s biggest meat producer, for being opaque about its indirect supply chain and its inability to take action.
- The new tool, Global Witness says, aims to serve as a way to call on JBS to take action and for the company’s financers to stop backing it until JBS can prove that its supply chain is deforestation-free.

Seafloor life abounds around hydrothermal vents hot enough to melt lead
- A team of international scientists on board the RV Falkor (too), a research vessel operated by the Schmidt Ocean Institute, recently discovered active hydrothermal vents on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
- This discovery was the first in more than 40 years for a 700-kilometer (423-mile) stretch of the Mid-Atlantic Ridge.
- Researchers say hydrothermal vents help regulate global ocean chemistry, support complex ecosystems, and store vast amounts of marine genetic resources.
- However, there is already interest in mining the sulfide deposits of hydrothermal vent systems for their commercially valuable minerals.

The more degraded a forest, the quieter its wildlife, new study shows
- Tropical forest researchers are increasingly using bioacoustics to record and analyze ecosystem soundscapes, the sounds that animals make, which in turn can be used as a proxy for forest health.
- Researchers studying soundscapes in logged rainforests in Indonesian Borneo have tested a novel approach that could provide a reliable and low-cost way for conservation agencies and communities to monitor tropical forest health.
- Their new method, which partitions animal groups into broad acoustic frequency classes, offers a stop-gap method for measuring acoustic activity that could be used in the short-term until more detailed artificial intelligence and machine-learning technology is developed.
- During their study, they found that animal sounds diminished and became asynchronous in forests disturbed by selective logging, factors that could be used as proxies for disturbed habitats.

Feathered forecast: Tech tools comb weather data for bird migrations
- Since its launch in 1999, the BirdCast project has used weather radar data to track and forecast bird migrations across the U.S.
- In recent years, technology such as cloud computing and machine learning have helped make the work of researchers in the project easier and more automated.
- Studying bird migrations is essential not only to help protect them, but to also analyze and understand environmental health.
- The BirdCast project is now working on integrating radar data with human observations and bioacoustics to help identify the bird species traversing the skies.

Return of the GEDI: Space-based, forest carbon-mapping laser array saved
- Since 2018, the GEDI mission has been firing lasers from the International Space Station to measure aboveground biomass on Earth.
- The information gleaned from it has been crucial for scientists to understand how deforestation contributes to worsening climate change.
- The mission was supposed to be decommissioned earlier this year, with the lasers fated to be jettisoned from the ISS and burned up in the atmosphere.
- However, NASA made a last-minute decision to extend the mission after a push from the scientists involved in it: the GEDI equipment will be put into storage for 18 months, then reinstated to resume operations for as long as the ISS continues to run.

Roads, human activity take a toll on red pandas: Q&A with researcher Damber Bista
- Damber Bista is a Nepali conservation scientist studying the country’s population of red pandas, an endangered species.
- He says there needs to be much more work done to protect the species, given that 70% of their habitat falls outside of protected areas.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Bista talks about the added stress that habitat fragmentation is putting on juvenile red pandas, the need for landscape-level conservation measures, and the importance of long-term studies.

Floating solar project on Philippines natural lake brings hope — and questions
- Laguna Lake in the Philippines is home to a pilot project for a floating solar photovoltaic (FPV) installation that could provide energy to surrounding communities as the country faces pressure to transition away from fossil fuels.
- “Floatovoltaic” installations already exist in other parts of Asia, but none are currently on natural lakes like Laguna; researchers say further research is needed to determine the long-term effects on the environment and local communities.
- In Laguna, local fishing communities hope their voices are heard as the project develops, especially since their livelihoods could be affected by the FPV installations; however, the project could also bring new jobs to the area.

Uterine implants and underwater ultrasounds aim to demystify shark births
- For years, studying the reproductive biology of sharks has depended on capturing the animals and dissecting them.
- Scientists recently developed the Birth Alert Tag, an egg-shaped satellite transmitter that can be implanted in the uterus of pregnant sharks to document the location and timing of births.
- In another development, scientists took ultrasound readings of whale sharks and sampled their blood to detect if they were pregnant.
- The new methods aim to help researchers determine sharks’ pregnancy status and the location of shark births; one goal is to inform the establishment of corridors to protect the animals, which are among the most vulnerable vertebrates on Earth.

As conservation technology grows, so does Mongabay’s coverage
- Mongabay’s new staff writer covering conservation technology joins the podcast to discuss this fast-growing field.
- Abhishyant “Abhi” Kidangoor has joined the newsroom after working as a reporter for Time in Hong Kong and New York, covering subjects from COVID-19 to the Hong Kong protests of 2019.
- From AI to eDNA, remote sensing and bioacoustics, Abhi discusses the range of conservation technology topics he’s tackling and what stories have surprised him the most.

Bioacoustics in your backyard: Q&A with conservation technologist Topher White
- Delta, a new eco-device, allows people to record the sounds of wildlife that live in and visit their backyards.
- Developed by conservation technologist Topher White, Delta combines the tools of bioacoustics and artificial intelligence.
- Delta is part of White’s larger mission to document the drastically changing state of global biodiversity.

To save Hainan gibbons, Earth’s rarest primate, experts roll out the big tech
- As scientists and the Chinese government ramp up efforts to protect the critically endangered Hainan gibbon, technology is playing an important part in helping track and monitor the species better.
- In recent years, bioacoustics, infrared technology and machine learning are among the tools that have been used to make data collection and analysis easier in the study of Hainan gibbons.
- According to estimates, there are only 35 or 36 individuals of the species left, limited to Bawangling National Nature Reserve in China’s Hainan province.

On wildlife and the Metaverse, some ethical considerations (commentary)
- The Metaverse may facilitate even more physical events and activities to take place online, thus cutting down on carbon emissions resulting from travel.
- But it’s also known that AI language processing models this relies on will push Metaverse carbon emissions through the roof, since they require large amounts of electricity.
- A community-driven blockchain provider and cryptocurrency option called Wild Metaverse, for example, will donate a percentage of profits to wildlife conservation. But will that be worth its overall cost to wildlife, a new op-ed wonders?
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily of Mongabay.

Scientists map nearly 10 billion trees, stored carbon, in Africa’s drylands
- A recent study has mapped the locations of 9.9 billion trees across Africa’s drylands, a region below the Sahara Desert and north of the equator.
- The research, which combined satellite mapping, machine learning and field measurements, led to an estimate of 840 million metric tons of carbon contained in the trees.
- This figure is much lower than the amount of carbon held in Africa’s tropical rainforests.
- However, these trees provide critical biodiversity habitat and help boost agricultural productivity, and this method provides a tool to track both degradation and tree-planting efforts in the region.

Carbon market intermediaries act with little transparency, according to report
- A new report reveals that few of the brokers, resellers and cryptocurrency vendors that act as intermediaries in the voluntary carbon market reveal the commissions and markups on the credits they buy and sell.
- This lack of transparency makes it difficult, if not impossible, to accurately assess how much money from these purchases is finding its way to climate mitigation efforts.
- The report calls on intermediaries to disclose their fees and on supporting organizations to share more information about these transactions, with the goal of illuminating the true potential impact of the voluntary carbon market on climate change.

Machine learning makes long-term, expansive reef monitoring possible
- Conservationists can now monitor climate impacts to expansive marine ecosystems over extended periods of time, a task that used to be impossible, using a tool developed by scientists in the U.S.
- The machine learning tool, called Delta Maps, provides a new way to assess which reefs might be best suited for survival, and which play a key role in delivering larvae to others, and therefore should be targeted for preservation efforts, according to the scientists.
- The scientists used the tool to examine the impacts of climate change on connectivity and biodiversity in the Pacific Ocean’s Coral Triangle, the planet’s most diverse and biologically complex marine ecosystem.
- The authors also noted that the Coral Triangle had more opportunities for rebuilding biodiversity, thanks to the region’s dynamic climate component, than anywhere else on the planet.

Carbon markets entice, but confuse, corporations: Report
- A new report from the environmental nonprofit Conservation International and the We Mean Business Coalition, a partnership of climate NGOs, found that many corporations are interested in using carbon markets to address their emissions.
- The report, released Jan. 12, drew from the responses of 502 managers in charge of sustainability at companies in the U.S., U.K. and Europe.
- Carbon markets, which allow businesses and individuals to offset their emissions by supporting projects aimed at, say, reducing tropical deforestation, are seen by some as a necessary step to reducing carbon emissions globally.
- However, others see carbon markets and the credits they sell as a tool that allows companies to continue releasing carbon with little benefit to the overall climate.

‘Grumpiest cat’ leaves its calling card on the world’s highest mountain
- The presence of the manul, a cold-adapted wild cat the size of a domestic cat, has been confirmed on the slopes of the world’s highest mountain, thanks to scat samples retrieved from there in 2019.
- The confirmation by DNA testing marks the first time the elusive cat has been formally recorded in Nepal’s eastern Himalayan region.
- The first confirmed sighting of the manul, also known as Pallas’s cat, in Nepal came in 2012, in the country’s western Himalayan region.
- Conservationists say the latest finding can help inform conservation actions for the species, including the protection of its prey.

Accelerating biodiversity-positive impact: A conversation with Silverstrand Capital’s Kelvin Chiu
- Last month, delegates meeting at the United Nations Biodiversity Conference reached agreement on a plan to protect and restore 30 percent of the world’s land and ocean by 2030. The accord was widely seen as a positive development for efforts to address the global extinction crisis, which often struggles to attract the public’s attention and investment relative to climate change.
- Recognizing the importance of accelerating investment and innovation in biodiversity conservation, Silverstrand Capital–a Singapore-based family office–last year launched a program that provides capital, in-kind services and coaching, and other forms of support to companies and organizations that are developing “biodiversity-positive” solutions.
- “Climate action is important, but climate is just one aspect of planetary health,” said Silverstrand Capital’s Founder Kelvin Chiu. “Collectively we should widen our perspectives beyond carbon. Nature is inherently complex, and biodiversity as a metric captures such complexity more holistically than carbon.”
- Chiu recently spoke with Mongabay about the importance of biodiversity, obstacles in bringing biodiversity solutions to scale, and creating biodiversity-positive impact.

New app tells donors what communities need to stop deforestation: Q&A with Health In Harmony
- Nonprofit organization Health In Harmony has been working with rainforest communities to improve access to health care, education and alternative sources of income, and now has a new app to directly connect donors to communities.
- The organization aims to work on intersectional solutions to help communities improve their lives while also weaning them off practices that drive deforestation.
- Health In Harmony’s new app, which includes images and video, enables people from around the world to make donations to implement community-driven solutions.

Democratizing the deep sea: Q&A with Ocean Discovery League’s Katy Croff Bell
- The current expense of studying the deep seas stymies many research initiatives, so scientists have developed a low-cost imaging and sensor device to make access to the deep sea more equal.
- Developed using off-the-shelf hardware, “Maka Niu” can capture images and collect data on temperature and salinity down to a depth of 1,500 meters, or nearly a mile.
- Scientists in countries like the Maldives, Seychelles and South Africa are now deploying prototypes to provide feedback for the final product.

Podcast: A bittersweet bioacoustics bonanza
- After six years and 150+ episodes, podcast host Mike Gaworecki is putting his microphone down. The show will go on, but will miss his expertise and command of conservation science’s myriad facets.
- One of his favorite topics to cover on the show over the years has been bioacoustics, the use of acoustic recording technology to study the behavior, distribution, and abundance of wildlife.
- For his final episode hosting the Mongabay Newscast, Mike shares an array of his favorite bioacoustics interviews that illustrate the breadth and potential of this powerful conservation technology.
- Over half a million downloads later, listen to his bittersweet farewell thoughts, and the range of recordings–from forest elephants to the Big Apple’s resident dolphins–he shares, here on this page, or find the Mongabay Newscast via your favorite podcast provider.

Mongabay’s ‘must listen’ podcast list for 2022
- 2022 was an exciting year for Mongabay’s podcast team, with a brand-new season of the long-form, exploratory series “Mongabay Explores,” diving into the island of New Guinea and its one-of-a-kind biodiversity and cultural richness over seven episodes.
- Regular host of the Newscast, Mike G., took listeners to the sky and sea to highlight Indigenous conservation efforts, bioacoustics, and combining Western science and traditional knowledge for marine conservation efforts.
- The Newscast also explored lesser-examined topics like cryptocurrency and their environmental impact.
- If you’re new to Mongabay’s podcast content or you want a review of some of the best recent episodes from this past year, start here.

Nations adopt Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework
- After multiple delays due to COVID-19, nearly 200 countries at the UN Biodiversity Conference (COP15) in Montreal sealed a landmark deal to halt and reverse biodiversity loss by 2030.
- The Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework (GBF), with four goals and 23 action-oriented targets, comes after two weeks of intense negotiations at COP15, in Montreal, Canada. This agreement replaces the Aichi Biodiversity Targets set in 2010.
- Among the 2030 goals, countries pledged to protect at least 30% of terrestrial and marine areas, while also recognizing Indigenous and traditional territories.
- Concerns have been raised about the ambitions of the framework, with many criticizing the agreement for its corporate influence, vague language and watered-down targets, many of which are not quantitative.

Airbus Foundation looks to put satellites to new biodiversity conservation uses
- The Connected Conservation Foundation and the Airbus Foundation are currently accepting proposals for an award to support the use of satellite imagery for biodiversity conservation.
- The competition winners will receive access to Airbus’s Pléiades and Pléiades Neo satellite constellations and $5,000 in financing.
- The satellites deliver images with resolutions down to 30 centimeters (12 inches) and could be used in applications such as anti-poaching, forest monitoring, and species population assessments.

Tech companies work to make fishing, aquaculture more sustainable
- Several companies around the world are developing technology to make fishing and aquaculture more sustainable.
- These include the use of artificial intelligence to identify non-native species that disrupt marine food webs and the fisheries they support, and lights that attempt to attract only target species to fishing nets in a bid to reduce the capture of non-targeted species.
- With the rapidly increasing global population underscoring the need to source protein more sustainably, experts say it’s urgent to find ways to make fishing less damaging and more productive.

Forest management tool could help rein in rampant wildlife trade in Bangladesh
- The Bangladesh Forest Department has introduced a Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) to help stop wildlife trafficking in several of the country’s protected forest areas.
- The pilot program follows the success of SMART technology used in the world’s largest mangrove forest, the Sundarbans, where a University of Calcutta study shows illegal logging and poaching have dropped significantly since the introduction of the tool.
- According to the Wildlife Conservation Society, major gaps in information about wildlife trade chains hamper the government’s ability to stop wildlife crimes.
- Experts say SMART patrolling should be introduced in protected forest areas across the country.

New app transforms data gathering for wildlife in Papua New Guinea
- A new app, developed in-house, has made documenting biodiversity easier and more efficient for the staff of the Tenkile Conservation Alliance in Papua New Guinea.
- The Protected Areas Management (PAM) app allows staff to record observations while in the field, facilitating the use of photos and videos, and automatically logging other information such as location and elevation.
- Since its launch, the app has encouraged staff to record more species and has made it easier for female staff in a generally patriarchal society to document and share their findings.
- The TCA says its working to make the app available to other conservation organizations within the next year.

A new tool to peer into fishing networks: Q&A with Austin Brush of C4ADS
- Washington, D.C.-based think tank C4ADS is launching Triton, a web tool to visually display the corporate structures behind fishing vessels.
- The initial cache of data focuses on the industrial fishing fleets of five key flag states: China, Taiwan, South Korea, Spain, and Japan, which together account for most high-seas fishing.
- Understanding who owns these vessels ultimately reveals the factors driving a vessel’s movements at sea and fishing activity, according to C4ADS analyst Austin Brush.

Breaking free from photosynthesis: Will high-tech foods save nature?
- Soaring industrial livestock production is dramatically increasing greenhouse gas emissions, deforestation and biodiversity loss. Current meat production methods are unsustainable and fast pushing the natural world and the global food system to the edge of collapse, argues British environmentalist George Monbiot.
- Monbiot says conventional solutions, like a global switch to veganism and/or the large-scale implementation of sustainable agroecology, are advancing too slowly to avert looming disaster. The only solutions, he says, are rapid high-tech fixes.
- The best approach, he contends, is one that would free food production from photosynthesis, using hydrogen drawn from water to feed protein- and fat-rich bacteria. The revolutionary technology can produce meat and cheese from the air that, reportedly, tastes as good as the “real” thing.
- Critical voices fear this not-yet-widely-tested techno fix may be a “magic bullet” that doesn’t work in the real world. Others say the only path to averting climate catastrophe is via mobilization around food sovereignty — the right of everyone to healthy foods produced by ecologically sound and sustainable methods, including innovations by traditional peoples.

A flying robot swoops in via Quebec to save endangered plants in Hawai‘i
- Surveying and collecting rare plant species that grow on steep cliffs has been a risky affair for scientists and conservationists for hundreds of years.
- The world’s first aerial sampling system that comprises a robotic arm suspended from a drone is trying to solve the problem in Hawai‘i.
- Conservationists control the Mamba robotic arm via remote control to identify and cut samples from rare plant species.
- The tool has enabled scientists to collect endangered species from vertical terrain and grow them in nurseries.

Technology makes studying wildlife easier, but access isn’t equal
- Studying primates and other wildlife in nature has long been a challenge owing to their diverse habitats and limitations on established research patterns.
- But a pair of recent studies highlights how the emergence of new technology, ranging from camera traps to drones, has made the work easier in recent years.
- Still, exorbitant costs and lack of technical know-how mean the technology isn’t easily accessible to researchers across the world.

On the roof of the world, water is life. Or a sign of it, thanks to eDNA
- A first-of-its-kind expedition in 2019 attempted to map the biodiversity on Mount Everest by using environmental DNA, or eDNA.
- With eDNA, the team was able to detect species that would have been hard to observe visually.
- The findings aim to serve as baseline data for future expeditions that study how climate change is reshaping life on the world’s highest peak.

The force is strong with space lasers helping researchers map the Amazon in 3D
- Since 2018, the GEDI mission has employed lasers on the International Space Station to measure the biomass density of forests on Earth.
- The information helps us understand how deforestation contributes to worsening climate change via increases in atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide.
- In the Amazon rainforest, data from the mission have highlighted specific areas that could benefit from carbon-based conservation.

New tech aims to track carbon in every tree, boost carbon market integrity
- Climate scientists and data engineers have developed a new digital platform billed as the first-ever global tool for accurately calculating the carbon stored in every tree on the planet.
- Founded on two decades of research and development, the new platform from nonprofit CTrees leverages artificial intelligence-enabled satellite datasets to give users a near-real-time picture of forest carbon storage and emissions around the world.
- With forest protection and restoration at the center of international climate mitigation efforts, CTrees is set to officially launch at COP27 in November, with the overall aim of bringing an unprecedented level of transparency and accountability to climate policy initiatives that rely on forests to offset carbon emissions.
- Forest experts broadly welcome the new platform, but also underscore the risk of assessing forest restoration and conservation projects solely by the amount of carbon sequestered, which can sometimes be a red herring in achieving truly sustainable and equitable forest management.

For lightning-prone communities in Bangladesh, new warning system may not be enough
- An average of four people a week are killed by lightning in Bangladesh, and the problem is expected to get worse as climate change increases the frequency of lightning strikes.
- Most of the victims tend to be farmers and fishers, who, like members of other poor communities around the world, are bearing the brunt of climate change impacts.
- The Bangladesh Meteorological Department has rolled out an early-warning system, based on modeling developed in collaboration with NASA, that it says will provide up to 54 hours’ warning of potential lightning strikes.
- But experts say the communities most in need of these alerts are those who don’t have access to the technology, and have called for other measures, such as building lightning arresters in open fields and wetlands, to protect vulnerable communities.

Raising awareness one bird post at a time: Q&A with Burungnesia’s Swiss Winasis
- Swiss Winasis launched the bird-spotting app Burungnesia in 2016, aiming to engage the wider public in reporting bird sightings and to raise awareness about the importance of bird conservation.
- Indonesia is a hotspot of avian biodiversity, but also a global hub of the illegal bird trade, with many species captured for the lucrative songbird market.
- To date, Burungnesia’s users have recorded some 1,300 species from around 32,000 locations, including the rediscovery of the critically endangered black-browed babbler — a species that hadn’t been seen in 170 years.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Swiss acknowledges the powerful economic incentives driving the bird trade, but says change can start at the individual level by spreading awareness.

Scientists develop AI that can listen to the pulse of a reef being restored
- Scientists have developed a machine-learning algorithm that can distinguish healthy coral reefs from less healthy ones by the soundscape in the ecosystem.
- Previous studies had established that the sounds of life in a successfully recovered reef are similar to those from a healthy reef, but parsing all the acoustic data was slow and labor-intensive.
- The new algorithm has been hailed as “an important milestone” for efficiently processing acoustic data to answer the basic question of how to determine the progress of a reef restoration program.
- Researchers say follow-up work is still needed, including to check whether the algorithm, tested in the Pacific Coral Triangle, also works in reefs in other parts of the world.

‘Remix it and let it evolve’: Q&A with FieldKit developer Shah Selbe
- Conservation technologist Shah Selbe’s plan to unveil his new environmental sensor platform FieldKit went awry because of the COVID-19 pandemic and the subsequent global supply chain crisis.
- The supply chain crisis has impacted companies big and small across industries — from Ikea to McDonalds — and been particularly harsh on smaller operators like Selbe, who don’t have the purchasing might of tech giants like Apple that are scrounging for the same scarce components.
- Selbe says that while the situation has improved somewhat, it’s still going to be hard on the conservation technology community: “Don’t build a hardware product during a pandemic,” he laughs.
- He also emphasizes the need for conservation technology to be open source to promote sharing of information: “I want people to be able to take FieldKit and mix and match and create some version of their own and build on it.”

‘Amped-up citizen science’ to save the world: Q&A with Conservation AI Hub’s Grant Hamilton
- Conservation AI Hub uses drones and artificial intelligence to detect koalas that survived the Australian bushfires of 2019 and 2020.
- The initiative is now working with communities in Australia to train them on using the technology by themselves.
- Director Grant Hamilton says it’s imperative to make technology more accessible so that more citizens can engage and participate in global conservation efforts.

In Gabon, camera-trap developers find the ideal proving ground for their craft
- Rich in forests and biodiversity, the Central African country of Gabon has long proved a fruitful testing ground for camera-trap technology.
- Snapshots of species once thought extinct in the country, such as lions, have helped inform conservation policy, including the establishment of national parks and protection of vast swaths of forest.
- The wealth of data generated means there are large data sets from various projects that researchers just don’t have the resources or time to sift through — which is why Gabon has also become a testing ground for artificial intelligence tools to aid in that task.
- Key limitations remain the cost of camera traps and the fact that many forms of data capture and analysis simply can’t be done by camera traps or AI, and still require human involvement.

Hear that? Bioacoustics is having its moment, but the technology still needs tuning
- The use of audio to study, monitor, detect and conserve species has gained popularity in recent years.
- Passive acoustic monitoring has been found to be more efficient than traditional camera traps; however, the use of audio can be data-heavy and laborious to pore through.
- Technological developments such as artificial intelligence have made audio analysis easier, but conservationists say gaps still exist.

Podcast: Blockchain for conservation? Maybe, but leave the crypto out
- The increasingly popular blockchain technology is being used for conservation finance purposes, but it comes with some significant downsides, both functional and environmental.
- The “mining” process for popular cryptocurrencies, such as bitcoin, is highly energy intensive, comparable to the annual electricity usage of entire nations.
- Journalist Judith Lewis Mernit and author Brett Scott join the Mongabay Newscast to discuss these environmental impacts, complications, and the relationship of our financial systems with our ecological ones.

Beyond bored apes: Blockchain polarizes wildlife conservation community
- Blockchain technology’s various applications, such as NFTs and smart contracts, are being explored for use in wildlife conservation.
- The technology’s potential might be immense, but downsides such as a massive carbon footprint and the imposition of Western technology to dictate resource management in the Global South raise logistical and ethical questions.
- Most proponents and critics agree on one thing: The technology is still in the early stages for its applications to be fully understood and implemented on the ground.

New DNA test aims to help bust illegal trade in precious red coral
- There’s a brisk illegal trade in precious red corals, from the family Coralliidae, but law enforcement currently has a difficult time telling commonly traded taxa apart.
- Demand for the corals for use in jewelry and decorative objects has depleted certain populations of these ecosystem engineers.
- Scientists recently developed a new DNA test that could help determine whether a coral object belongs to a taxon that’s subject to international trade regulations.
- They express hope that the new method will “contribute to better control of international trade” and inform buyers about the species they purchase.

Turtle DNA database traces illegal shell trade to poaching hotspots
- Critically endangered hawksbill turtles have been hunted for their patterned shells for centuries to make tortoiseshell jewelry and decorative curios.
- The exploitation and trade pushed the species to the brink of extinction; despite international bans on killing and trading the turtles and their parts, persistent demand continues to stoke illegal trade.
- Experts say they hope the launch of a new global turtle DNA database coupled with DNA-based wildlife forensics techniques can turn the tables on poachers and illegal traders.
- The new resource, called ShellBank, will enable law enforcement authorities to trace confiscated tortoiseshell products to known turtle breeding locations to help them crack down on poaching and the illegal trade.

Record-breaking seafood production must undergo a ‘blue transformation’: FAO
- The U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization released its latest “State of World Fisheries and Aquaculture” (SOFIA) report in late June. The flagship report, released biennially since 1995, provides data, analysis and projections that inform decision-making internationally.
- Fisheries and aquaculture production rose around 3% since 2018, to an all-time high of 214 million metric tons in 2020, with a first-sale value of around $406 billion, the report found. Growth was driven by a 6% rise in aquaculture production, while wild fish capture dropped by almost 4.5%.
- The number of sustainably fished marine fish stocks continued a long-term decline; less than 65% of stocks are now being fished within biologically sustainable levels, down from 90% in the 1970s.
- The new report outlines a “blue transformation” that aims to make both the aquaculture and wild fisheries sectors more sustainable and productive so they can help feed a human population projected to reach 10.9 billion by the end of this century.

Data from droppings: Researchers draw up a genetic ID map for chimps
- As part of a broader project studying the cultural and genetic diversity of chimpanzees across Africa, researchers have used fecal samples from 48 sites across the continent to create a genetic identity data set of chimpanzees across the species’ range.
- The data set supports the division of chimpanzees into the four currently recognized subspecies, as well as shedding light on historic gene flow between subspecies and between chimpanzees and bonobos.
- The data set can help conservationists determine the genetic origin of chimpanzees confiscated from the illegal wildlife trade and identify poaching hotspots, researchers say.

‘Fitbit for whales’ and other tagging tech help reshape wildlife conservation
- Tagging technology has since the 1960s helped conservationists and researchers keep track of a wide range of wildlife species.
- But tags and collars can often be intrusive or invasive, acting as a source of stress to the animal and sometimes even undermining its survival.
- In recent years, researchers have developed new tag designs aimed at minimizing any impact their work might have on animals, while also providing a richer array of data.
- These solutions range from DIY radio collars made with cat collars, to bespoke tags for dolphins and whales that incorporate Apple Watch-like biometric sensors.

High tech early warning system could curb next South African locust swarms
- The worst locust swarms in South Africa’s Eastern Cape province in 25 years (occurring in May 2022) is in the past. But the millions of eggs laid by the insects could hatch this September, the beginning of spring in the Southern Hemisphere.
- Grassy farmland in the vast region was only just beginning to recover from a devastating six year drought which struck between 2015 – 2021, when the locust swarms arrived earlier this year.
- Farmers are now pinning their hopes on new software that will track newborn locusts in real time, enabling them to target and exterminate the insect pests before they take to the skies and reproduce.
- The software has been used in seven countries in the Horn of Africa and East Africa and is seen as a vital part of minimizing the size of swarms, which can become an annual disaster if they aren’t targeted immediately after birth. South Africa favors chemical pesticides over non-toxic biopesticides for locust control.

Building a farmer-friendly future: Q&A with CROWDE’s Yohanes Sugihtonugroho
- Yohanes Sugihtonugroho founded the digital platform CROWDE in 2018 as a way to connect farmers in Indonesia with investors.
- Agriculture plays a major role in Indonesia’s economy, but farmers remain among the least empowered groups in society, Yohanes says, subjected to unfair trading practices by a system controlled by predatory middlemen.
- CROWDE provides farmers, especially younger ones, with access to capital, financial advice, and education in harvesting, pest control and market access.
- CROWDE says it has distributed more than $3.5 million to more than 20,000 farmers, ranchers and fishers across the country, helping boost their income by as much as 150%.

Smart Parks, the Dutch technologists tackling poaching with technology
- Smart Parks is a Netherlands-based organization deploying high tech and an R&D-focused approach to finding technological solutions to conservation problems.
- The organization is best-known for using LoRa (long range) wireless technology to create networks of connected sensors and devices within conservation areas.
- These are designed to help anti-poaching teams through access to real-time data such as animal locations, vehicle movements, and fence voltages, among other parameters.
- Working primarily in Africa, Smart Parks’ next phase of development is to add more sensors to tracking collars to collect additional data such as animal sounds and movement data, and then use machine learning to gain additional insights for research.

New near-real-time tool reveals Earth’s land cover in more detail than ever before
- A new tool co-developed by Google Earth Engine and the World Resources Institute is being billed as the planet’s most up-to-date and high-resolution global land cover mapping data set, giving unprecedented levels of detail about how land is being used around the world.
- The launch of the tool this week marks a big step forward in enabling organizations and governments to make better science-based, data-informed decisions about urgent planetary challenges, the developers say.
- Named Dynamic World, it merges cloud-based artificial intelligence with satellite imagery to give near-real-time global visualizations of nine types of land use and land cover.
- The tool is likely to be important for a variety of purposes, the developers say, such as monitoring the progress of ecosystem restoration goals, assessing the effectiveness of protected areas, creating sustainable food systems, and alerting land managers to unforeseen land changes like deforestation and fires.

Can conservation technology help save our rapidly disappearing species? | Problem Solved
- Humanity knows, in a best-case scenario, only 20% of the total species on Earth.
- Yet humans have, at a minimum, increased species extinction 1,000 times above the natural extinction rate, raising concerns among field monitoring experts who worry they may be “writing the obituary of a dying planet.”
- The establishment of protected areas often depends on the ability of conservationists to effectively monitor and track land-based species — but is this happening fast enough?
- For this episode of “Problem Solved,” Mongabay breaks down three of the most innovative pieces of conservation technology and how they can advance the field of species monitoring, and ultimately, conservation.

In Singapore, a forensics lab wields CSI-like tech against wildlife traffickers
- A wildlife forensics laboratory launched in Singapore last year is making breakthroughs in tracking down criminal syndicates trafficking in wildlife.
- Singapore is a major transit point for the illegal ivory trade; the nation impounded 8.8 metric tons of elephant ivory in July 2019 — evidence from which led to the arrest of 14 people in China.
- The researchers use the same method to capture poachers that authorities in California used to arrest the Golden State Killer.
- Elephant ivory and pangolin scales account for the bulk of the new lab’s workload; figuring out how traffickers accumulate this material from two species could uncover much of their methods.

Biologist fighting plastic pollution to save sea turtles wins ‘Green Oscar’
- Estrela Matilde, a conservation biologist and executive director of the NGO Fundação Príncipe, has won a Whitley Award, for her work to save sea turtles in the tiny African nation of São Tomé and Príncipe.
- Fundação Príncipe has been working since 2015 to conserve the island of Príncipe’s biodiversity by working with the local community to develop alternative livelihoods that reduce pressure on resources and protect wildlife.
- Matilde’s attention has turned to documenting and tackling plastic pollution after a conservation initiative that put cameras on sea turtles revealed just how much plastic Príncipe’s marine life encounters.
- She plans to use the award money to document via GPS the tides of plastic pollution reaching Príncipe, and to scale up a livelihood project in which local women make trinkets out of the plastic that washes up on the island’s beaches.

Where satellites come up short, drones can fill in a picture of our oceans
- Marine researchers are increasingly turning to aerial drones for a new view of the ocean, given that their resolution is much finer than that of satellites.
- While drones are used in all kinds of ways in marine studies, researchers say drones can be equipped with special sensors to track small changes in the ocean’s movements that drive much of marine life.
- Drones could be especially helpful in finding and tracking local and dangerous algae blooms, for example.
- Researchers remain hindered by regulations and cost, but that hasn’t stopped them from using drones to increase our knowledge of our blue planet.

Robot revolution: A new real-time accounting system for ocean carbon
- Oceans are key to understanding climate change, seeing as they take up and store 25% of the carbon that human activities add to Earth’s atmosphere. But there are big gaps in our knowledge regarding ocean carbon storage and release, and how it is evolving as climate change unfolds, a problem scientists are now addressing.
- An international deployment of thousands of robotic floats, fitted with sophisticated biogeochemical sensors, is underway and already providing real-time data that scientists can integrate into ocean carbon budgets and climate models. Many more floats are coming, with the capacity to operate in remote regions.
- One such place is the Southern Ocean around Antarctica, which accounts for almost half of the worldwide oceanic carbon sink. Windier conditions there, caused by climate change, are churning up more carbon-rich waters from the depths, releasing stored carbon and introducing unforeseen variability into ocean carbon emission estimates.
- Robots are starting to monitor these emissions in real time. More accurate ocean carbon budgets will improve accounting of land-based carbon dioxide emissions, help create more accurate assessments of how well global carbon agreements such as the Paris Agreement are meeting goals, and will help assess ocean carbon dioxide removal plans.

Sustainable fashion: Biomaterial revolution replacing fur and skins
- Innovators around the globe are achieving inspiring results using natural sources, traditional knowledge, and advanced biotechnology techniques to develop sustainable materials for the fashion industry, replacing fur, leather and skins, and slashing the impacts of one of the world’s most polluting industries.
- Although companies of this type still represent a tiny part of the global textile chain, such firms grew fivefold between 2017 and 2019. Executives of apparel companies recently surveyed say they “aspire to source at least half of their products with such materials by 2025.”
- This shift in production and corporate mentality is due to several factors, including pressure from animal rights activists and environmental organizations, along with consumer demand, comes as the climate and environmental crises deepen.
- “Sustainable materials are pivotal if we are to transform the fashion industry from one of the most polluting industries to one that is transformative, regenerative and more humane, caring both for the environment and the people it touches in its complex supply chain,” says fashion designer Carmen Hijosa.

Podcast: Afield at last, researchers head out for a new season
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we check in with a couple field researchers to find out what they’ll be working on during the upcoming season.
- For many, it’s the first field season after a rather long hiatus due to the COVID pandemic.
- Meredith Palmer’s field work involves developing new prototypes for wildlife monitoring technologies like BoomBox, an open‐source device that turns camera traps into Automated Behavioral Response systems.
- We also speak with Ummat Somjee, a field researcher based out of the Smithsonian Tropical Institute in Panama who uses insects as models to understand the evolution of extreme structures in large animals, like the tusks of elephants and antelope horns.

Shell of a comeback: New app, awareness campaigns bring hope for hawksbill turtles
- Hawksbill turtles are due for a status assessment on the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.
- One of the largest threats to global hawksbill recovery is the continued illegal tortoiseshell trade in Japan, a major consumer, and Indonesia, a top exporter.
- Conservation successes include a dramatic decrease in tortoiseshell sales in Colombia, previously one of the largest shell sellers in the Western Hemisphere.

Researchers turn to drones for that big-picture view of the forest canopy
- Scientists need to collect data fast to understand how forests are changing due to climate change and deforestation.
- In a recent study, scientists flew drones over the forest canopy to learn more about tree mortality. The drones revealed new patterns because of the large areas they can cover. According to one researcher, a single drone can cover an area in a few days that would take a team a year on foot.
- Drones are also helping local and Indigenous communities monitor forest fires and deforestation as well as harvest resources more sustainably.
- Yet experts say that the useful tool should complement, and not replace, fieldwork done on the ground.

For fire-ravaged northern Thailand, there’s now an app to battle the blaze
- Thai researchers incorporating remote-sensing technology into smartphone applications are helping to reduce the severity of forest fires in the country’s northern Chiang Rai province.
- In the past, only local officials had access to hotspot data from satellites; now, whenever a new hotspot is identified, firefighters and nearby communities alike receive notifications on their mobile apps.
- The app has enabled villagers, firefighters, NGOs and scientists to “join forces” in fighting forest fires, and encouraged communities to police and reduce unregulated burning of agricultural land.
- The researchers are currently working on a second app that aims to help local communities transition toward more sustainable ways of clearing and fertilizing their land than burning.

Podcast: Hippos, manatees, and how the sounds of African wildlife aid their conservation
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we discuss two bioacoustics studies of African wildlife and listen to recordings of hippos and manatees.
- We speak with Nicolas Mathevon, a professor at the University of Saint-Etienne in France and co-author of a report published in Current Biology Magazine last month summarizing the results of a study that determined vocal recognition is used by hippos to manage relationships between territorial groups. Mathevon tells us about the study of vocal recognition in hippos, plays us some of the hippo calls used in the study, and tells us how the study’s findings could help improve conservation measures like translocations.
- We also speak with Clinton Factheu, a PhD Student at the University of Yaoundé 1 in Cameroon and a research assistant with the African Marine Mammal Conservation Organization. Factheu recently co-authored a study published by the The Journal of the Acoustical Society of America that used passive acoustic monitoring to provide the first characterization of African manatee vocalizations. Factheu tells us about the research, explains why bioacoustic monitoring is one of the best ways to study a freshwater/marine mammal like the manatee, and plays a number of manatee calls for us.

At a disputed Native massacre site, tribes brace for a new, lithium-driven rush
- The U.S. Bureau of Land Management has approved an open-pit lithium ore mine in northern Nevada, despite protests by Native tribes to protect the disputed sacred site.
- Lithium is in high demand as the key component in batteries that fuel electric vehicles and cellphones, raising environmental concerns about its extraction.
- The U.S. government is ramping up production of lithium all along the domestic supply chain to meet its clean energy goals.

Winds of change: Detecting species from airborne DNA just got real
- In recent years, environmental DNA has enabled conservationists and citizen scientists to study entire ecosystems and to monitor elusive species that would otherwise evade detection.
- A suite of new research studies demonstrates that eDNA extracted from thin air can be used to identify a variety of plants and animals.
- Airborne DNA technology is potentially a valuable new tool for monitoring biodiversity, with particularly promising applications for monitoring rare and endangered species and providing early warning of invasive organisms.
- While a lot of work to hone the technique remains, experts are hopeful that prior advances in other eDNA technologies will help to accelerate the development of airborne DNA sampling so that it can be used in the field.

Scientists’ secret weapon to monitor the Southern Ocean? Elephant seals
- Southern elephant seals living on Kerguelen Island, a sub-Antarctic island, are helping to gather information about the Southern Ocean with data-logging devices attached to their hair.
- For instance, the elephant seals have helped gather data on sea ice formation, ocean and ice shelf interactions, and frontal system dynamics.
- The Southern Ocean provides many ecosystem services for the planet, but the region is rapidly changing due to climate change.

Tech revolution holds world of promise for conservation, but challenges persist
- Technology has rapidly changed the face of conservation and is now at a critical juncture where cutting edge tools are available, but aren’t necessarily as accessible or affordable as they need to be.
- A recent survey by WILDLABS, an online platform connecting conservation technology experts, shows that environmental DNA, networked sensors and artificial intelligence tools are the fields that hold the most promise.
- Yet despite the progress that’s been made, there are still many barriers to accessibility for local and Indigenous communities.
- Experts say collaboration and partnerships between conservationists, tech developers and local and Indigenous communities will be key to ensuring that conservation tech can continue having an impact.

For species on the very brink of extinction, cloning is a loaded last resort
- Extinction is a very real and pressing crisis, threatening biodiversity around the world despite some of the best efforts by conservationists.
- Where conventional conservation methods have fallen short, proponents say biotechnologies like cloning and stem cell technology may be new avenues worth pursuing, including for reviving lost genetic diversity in endangered populations.
- There’s already proof of concept, as scientists have successfully cloned a black-footed ferret and Przewalski’s horse.
- While the topic of cloning has long been an ethical minefield, proponents point out that humans have been intervening in natural selection for thousands of years, and that we should continue to do so, but “in more deliberate, thoughtful, and careful ways.”

In the Brazilian Amazon, solar energy brings light — and new opportunities
- A village on the banks of Brazil’s Negro River is running 132 solar panels as part of a pilot project aimed at bringing clean energy and economic opportunity to remote communities in the Amazon.
- The scheme promises to bring reliable energy to the community of Santa Helena do Inglês, in northern Amazonas state, addressing frequent power cuts that have long plagued the remote village and thwarted efforts to develop sustainable income streams.
- The solar energy supply is helping the community — a former logging hub that now lies within a protected reserve — generate income from fishing and ecotourism, without encroaching on the forest.

More Zoom, less climate gloom as conferences move online, study finds
- A new study found that moving conferences online can reduce the carbon footprint by 94% and energy use by 90%.
- It also found that hybrid events, in which some participants attend in person while others attend online, could reduce carbon footprint and energy by two-thirds by taking measures like carefully choosing a location and only serving plant-based foods.
- While some professionals are dissatisfied with online conferences, mainly due to poor networking opportunities, others have expressed satisfaction with these formats’ accessibility, and the lowering of carbon footprints and costs.

‘We scientists engage in soft diplomacy’: Q&A with Christine Wilkinson
- Christine Wilkinson is a carnivore ecologist, National Geographic Explorer and postdoctoral researcher at the University of California, Berkeley, who uses technology to examine interactions between humans and wildlife in East Africa and California.
- Her work is interdisciplinary, using participatory mapping to include local communities in her work and learn about how peoples’ perceptions about carnivores affects conflicts with them.
- Wilkinson also notes that human-wildlife conflicts areas are rooted in human-human conflict, often based in socioeconomic and sociopolitical contexts as well as histories.
- Wilkinson spoke with Mongabay about why hyenas get such a bad rap, her dream of a solar-powered camera-trap grid, and her work bringing together other African American scientists in mammalogy.

Conservation and food production must work in tandem, new study says
- Confining conservation efforts to only 30% of Earth’s land may render a fifth of mammals and a third of birds at high risk of extinction, according to a new study.
- If that 30% were to be strictly protected without accounting for food production activities, it could also result in substantial local or regional food production shortfalls, the researchers said.
- Instead, they propose an integrated land-use planning strategy where conservation and food production goals are considered in tandem, including through mixed approaches like agroforestry.
- Such a model would not only generate less food production shortfalls, but also leave just 2.7% of mammal and 1.2% of bird species at risk of extinction.

Boosting human and machine expertise with conservation tech: Q&A with Sara Beery
- Sara Beery is a computer vision expert with an unlikely path to science: having started out as a ballerina, her goal now is to help solve problems in conservation technology.
- She takes two approaches to conservation tech — a top-down one for solutions that can be applied to a wide range of problems, and a bottom-up one tailored for specific challenges — and works in the field to make sure they actually work.
- Beery helped create Microsoft’s AI for Earth MegaDetector, a model that helps detect animals in camera trap data, and collaborates with the ElephantBook project in Kenya to automate the identification of elephants.
- In an interview with Mongabay, Sara Beery talks about her path to conservation tech, how she combines the best of both human and artificial intelligence to solve problems, and why fieldwork is key to ensuring that tech solutions are usable and accessible.

Betty Rubio, the tech-savvy Kichwa leader defending threatened territory
- In 2018, Betty Rubio became the first woman president of her region’s Indigenous federation, a role in which she faces threats from narcotrafficking, logging and illegal mining.
- The Kichwa leader says her grandfather warned her about the risks of deforestation, so today she’s participating in an environmental monitoring project to detect illegal activities in the Amazon.
- In Peru, where only 4% of presidencies in Indigenous communities are held by women, Betty tries to encourage her female colleagues to take leading positions in their organizations.

In wildlife traffickers, the internet finds a cancel target everyone agrees on
- The Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online has removed more than 11 million posts linked to the wildlife trade on platforms ranging from Facebook to eBay to Alibaba since it was established in 2018.
- But as more tech companies join the cause, and algorithms to weed out trafficking keywords grow more sophisticated, traffickers are becoming savvier and evolving new ways to keep operating in the internet’s vast gray zone.
- With the proliferation of online platforms, and the increasing shift of commerce online since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic, coalition supporters are emphasizing the industry-led approach as the most effective way to clamp down.
- However, law enforcement is still lacking because of the jurisdictional challenges when it comes to fighting online crime; although there have been some successful convictions, proponents say private sector collaboration is necessary to navigate the vastness of the internet.

Galápagos census looks at impacts on turtles during and after COVID lockdown
- The suspension of tourism activities around the world as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic gave researchers the chance to answer an important question: What impact does tourism have on wildlife populations?
- In Ecuador’s famed Galápagos Islands, researchers have for more than a year now been carrying out a turtle census on Tortuga Bay, a beach popular with tourists, but which was off-limits during lockdown.
- With tourists now returning, the researchers have been able to record tangible changes in the number and behavior of the turtles on the beach, although a full analysis is only expected to begin in December.

For South Africa’s dwindling renosterveld, there’s now a ‘panic button’ app
- The renosterveld shrubland once covered the Swartland and Overberg regions of western South Africa, but its rich soils led farmers to clear it for agriculture.
- Remaining fragments continue to provide habitat for birds like endangered black harriers and vulnerable southern black korhaans, and mammals like the grey rhebok, a near-threatened antelope.
- A “panic button” app has been developed in South Africa to alert the authorities to threats facing the renosterveld, the country’s most endangered ecosystem.

For world’s rarest gorillas, camera traps prove pivotal for protection
- Cross River gorillas are Africa’s rarest and most endangered ape, once thought to have already been driven to extinction.
- Camera traps have emerged as a critical tool for monitoring the health and population sizes of the subspecies.
- Recent images have shown multiple young gorillas, which conservationists take as a sign that protection measures are working, and which have also helped raise awareness and funding for Cross River gorilla conservation.

Technology and tradition team up to watch over a sacred island’s sea turtles
- Uninhabited Poilão Island in Guinea-Bissau is Africa’s most important nesting ground for green sea turtles (Chelonia mydas).
- Local people have long regarded the island as sacred and have limited access to it, which has kept its environment in a near-pristine state.
- The island is now protected as part of a marine national park, a compromise in which local people granted researchers and some other outsiders access to the island in an exchange that included employment monitoring turtles.
- Researchers and local people now work together to study the turtles with the aim of better protecting them.

‘Superstitious belief kills pangolins’: Q&A with biologist Elisa Panjang
- Elisa Panjang spends long hours in the field studying pangolin populations, using a combination camera traps, collaring and radio telemetry to monitor the elusive mammal.
- Her work has helped raise the local protection status of the Sunda pangolin (Manis javanica) in her home state of Sabah, Malaysia, and she says she’s hopeful that conservationists will be able to save pangolins from extinction.
- Pangolins are the most trafficked animal in the world; their scales are used in traditional medicine and their meat is a delicacy in some countries, despite no evidence to support claims that pangolin body parts have any healing properties.
- Elisa Panjang spoke with Mongabay about the challenges of fieldwork in the Bornean rainforest, the technologies that work (and don’t work) to track pangolins, and the growing global awareness about the need to protect the world’s most trafficked mammal.

Indigenous agents fight deforestation with drones and AI in Brazilian Amazon
- The rate of deforestation has increased in recent years in the Brazilian state of Acre, which is now in the top five for deforestation risk, according to a forecast by an artificial intelligence tool developed by Microsoft and Brazilian nonprofit Imazon.
- In a study developed especially for Mongabay, the AI tool shows that Acre has 878 square kilometers (339 square miles) of land that is at high or very high risk of deforestation, including inside, 20 conservation units and 29 Indigenous territories.
- Efforts to combat deforestation include training of Indigenous people to monitor their own territories against agriculture-driven invasions.
- One Indigenous agroforestry agent told Mongabay that he and his peers rely on technology such as drones and GPS to monitor forest fires, guard against poaching, and thwart illegal invasions.

From the ocean floor, a startup livestreams the rise of coral cities
- A Portuguese company that was forged in Southeast Asia is building an underwater city for coral in Sultan Iskandar Marine Park, Malaysia, made from food waste such as rice husks.
- It is also building a pilot project ultimately leading to a 72 km2 (28 mi2) engineered reef off Comporta, Portugal, which will cost approximately $226-556 million.
- Each stackable underwater city contains a Bluboxx, a console fitted with sensors to measure the salinity, temperature and acidity of the sea, with the data then livestreamed to scientists and shared with governments.
- If no action is taken to protect coral reefs, it is believed that 90% will be extinct by 2050, according to the U.N.’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

Study shines a light on Indonesia’s murky shark fishery and trade
- Indonesia is home to one-fifth of known shark and ray species and to the world’s largest shark and ray fishery, but a recent study reveals gaps in fisheries regulations that facilitate illegal and unregulated trade.
- Earlier this year, scientists reported that shark and ray numbers have declined globally by some 70% over the last half century, lending fresh urgency to improving fisheries regulations and limits on landings.
- The recent study revealed major discrepancies between export and import figures between Indonesia and trading partners. It also documented the complex web of domestic trade in shark and ray products and a surge in live exports.
- Authorities face challenges with verifying the origin of a vast array of processed shark and ray products, from fins and cartilage to meat and oils; new techniques that enable authorities to use DNA barcoding to identify protected species have the potential to close regulatory loopholes and protect threatened species.

One of world’s last two northern white rhinos withdrawn from breeding program
- Scientists have decided to retire one of the world’s last two northern white rhinos from their assisted breeding program, which strives to save the subspecies from extinction.
- BioRescue will no longer harvest eggs from 32-year-old Najin, which makes her daughter, Fatu, the sole supplier of reproductive material for the assisted breeding program; the program has so far created 12 rhino embryos from Fatu’s eggs.
- The decision followed an in-depth ethical risk assessment that considered multiple factors, including Najin’s age, health and welfare.
- Experts say Najin will still play a crucial role in efforts to save her subspecies, such as passing on social and cultural knowledge to future offspring, and providing tissue samples for advanced stem cell research.

Pingers on fishing nets found to save river dolphins in Indonesian Borneo
- A trial has demonstrated that underwater acoustic pingers can keep river dolphins at a safe distance from fishing nets, preventing fatal entanglements.
- Fishers in the Mahakam River in Indonesian Borneo collaborated with researchers to test the devices that emit a high-frequency sound that acts as a deterrent to the local population of freshwater Irrawaddy dolphins.
- Aside from protecting the dolphins, the devices were also found to increase fishers’ catches and reduce costly repairs to nets; experts describe this as a “win-win” solution.
- International river dolphin initiatives are now testing the devices in locations such as the Amazon, the Ganges and the Indus rivers to find out if they can be implemented at a much larger scale to safeguard dwindling river dolphin species worldwide.

Cooking with the sun: Entrepreneurs help launch Mexico’s solar revolution
- Much of Mexico gets 300 days of sunshine out of the year which is helping make the country a solar energy pioneer. With the current government showing little interest in the clean sustainable technology, a range of entrepreneurs is leading the way, especially in the food industry.
- In the southern state of Oaxaca, Victoria Aguilera studied sustainable energy at the regional university and founded Sazón del Sol, a grassroots project that includes a solar farm, solar restaurant, and solar food processing workplace. She designed and now sells a solar kitchen for use in homes and restaurants.
- In central Mexico’s Hidalgo state, Gregor Schäpers’ company, Trinysol, achieved initial success with solar-powered water heaters. Now he’s experimenting with solar cooking using Scheffler modules — solar dish reflectors to run kitchens in restaurants, hotels, mezcal distilleries and tortilla bakeries.
- In the state of Jalisco, Angel Mejía and Aldo Agraz co-founded Inventive Power in 2010, specializing in thermal solar systems. Local food factories and dairies were their first clients. Since then, Mexican and international companies Nestlé, Barcel, Unilever, and tequila producer José Cuervo have all commissioned projects.

Hungry like the maned wolf pup: Clips give rare glimpse of elusive canine
- New camera-trap clips show three maned wolf pups nursing and eating regurgitated food from their mother.
- This is the first time this behavior has been observed and documented in wild maned wolves, experts say.
- Wild maned wolves have recently recolonized Iberá National Park in Argentina, thanks to conservation efforts.

Project maps soundscape of human noise in northern Adriatic and impact on marine life
- The bottlenose dolphin population of Croatia’s Lošinj archipelago is increasingly faced with problems from noise disturbance produced by boats, particularly in the summer tourist season.
- Noise pollution is known to impact a wide range of marine species, from turtles to tuna to cetaceans, but its long-term effects are still little-understood.
- The SOUNDSCAPE project that started in 2019 in the northern Adriatic Sea, between Italy and Croatia, is trying to better understand the problem at the regional level and identify solutions.

Drones are a knife in the gunfight against poaching. But they’re leveling up
- At the peak of the rhino poaching war in South Africa in 2015 and 2016, poachers slaughtered nearly three rhinos a day.
- Although that rate has declined, the numbers are still disheartening and unsustainable, with poachers killing at least one rhino every day.
- Some conservationists have looked to drones as a potentially powerful tool in anti-poaching efforts, with the technology continuing to evolve.
- But experts say it isn’t at the level yet where it can meet the challenge, and that while it can be helpful, conservation efforts must continue to engage and educate local communities.

To predict forest loss in protected areas, look at nearby unprotected forest
- To predict deforestation risk in a protected area, look at the condition of its surrounding forests, according to a new study.
- The study, which analyzed satellite images of protected forests worldwide, found nearby forest loss to be a consistent early warning signal of future deforestation in protected areas.
- Researchers said national park agencies can use their proposed model to predict how vulnerable protected areas in their countries are to deforestation, and prioritize conservation efforts accordingly.
- But even as these agencies work to protect forests, they should take into account the needs of local communities living in the area, the researchers said.

In a sea of oil palms, even monitor lizards need islands of natural forest
- Forest patches in and around oil palm plantations are crucial for the survival of Asian water monitor lizards, a generalist species that usually thrives in human-impacted landscapes.
- A new study focused on the Kinabatangan floodplain in Malaysian Borneo found significantly more lizards in natural forest near oil palm plantations than in the plantations themselves.
- The researchers suggest lizards are particularly dependent on forest patches for breeding sites and shelter.
- The study adds to a growing body of evidence that demonstrates the vital role of natural forest in and around oil palm plantations and reaffirms the importance of buffer zones and habitat corridors that enable animals to negotiate oil palm-dominated landscapes.

Empowering Indigenous youths with tradition and tech: Q&A with Dawn Martin-Hill
- Dawn Martin-Hill, a professor at McMaster University, introduced Terrastories, a geo-based storytelling app, to the Haudenosaunee people of the Great Lakes to help them protect their land and water as well as safeguard invaluable knowledge.
- A main goal of her work is to empower and support Indigenous youths, and she has also helped create a virtual reality app and adapt a mental health app for Indigenous youth to connect with their land and articulate trauma.
- Martin-Hill advocates for the integration of Indigenous knowledge into Western science and says anyone who is concerned with the climate crisis should support Indigenous people.

Tracking white-bellied pangolins in Nigeria, the new global trafficking hub
- Nigeria has in recent years become a major transit point for the illegal trade in pangolins, the scaly anteater known for being the most trafficked mammal in the world.
- With the four Asian pangolin species increasingly scarce, traffickers have made Nigeria their hub for collecting scales and meat from the four African species and shipping them to East Asia.
- In Cross River National Park, home to the elusive white-bellied pangolin, researcher Charles Emogor is working to both study the species and work with communities to end the poaching.
- “Until our government faces up to the fact that we’ve become a staging ground for the pangolin trade, I fear we’re only going to see more cross-border smuggling of scales, and more pangolin flesh for sale in wild meat markets,” he says.

In Half-Earth Project, a full-on bid to get countries to protect biodiversity
- Last year, the Half-Earth Project launched its “national report cards,” which show how much land is currently protected in each country, how many land vertebrate species (including endemics) each country holds, and how much and also which areas of land should be preserved to protect its biodiversity in the future.
- Each country also receives a score based on several indicators, including the National Species Protection Index (SPI), which was generated by the Map of Life and endorsed by the Convention on Biological Diversity.
- The team at the Half-Earth Project say the map and accompanying tools can be valuable resources for decision-makers trying to reach the objective of protecting 30% of land by 2030, although they argue that the ultimate goal should be protecting half of the Earth.
- While supporters of the Half-Earth Project say achieving their goal benefits everyone, critics say a large number of people, particularly those living in poorer countries, could be adversely affected by such large-scale area-based protection.

The cat is back: Wild Amur tigers rebound in China, thanks to govt policies
- Camera trap footage taken between 2013 and 2018 revealed that about 55 endangered Amur tigers are now living in northeastern China.
- Experts say the tigers’ reemergence in the region is largely due to Chinese national policies favoring environmental stewardship, including the Natural Forest Protection Project and the establishment of several reserves.
- According to a recent paper, northeastern China could actually support about 310 tigers, including 119 breeding females, if further efforts are taken to minimize human pressures and ecological corridors are established between tiger habitats.
- While tiger numbers are growing in China, the species continues to face threats of poaching, habitat loss and fragmentation, and human-wildlife conflict.

Creation of three new northern white rhinos embryos may indicate hope for other rhino species
- In July, BioRescue announced the creation of three new northern white rhino embryos, bringing the total to 12.
- Project leader Thomas Hildebrandt said he hopes to transfer a northern white rhino embryo into a female southern white rhino by the end of the year.
- Researchers and stakeholders are assessing whether it would be possible to employ similar methods to preserve genetic diversity in critically endangered Asian rhino species, weighing the risks of extracting eggs against the need for a backup plan.

The first complete map of the world’s shallow tropical coral reefs is here
- Scientists have completed the first-ever global, high-resolution map of the world’s shallow tropical coral reefs.
- When combined with an integrated tool that tracks global coral bleaching events in near-real-time, the new resource provides a comprehensive overview of the trends and changes in global coral reef health.
- While the completion of the map is an achievement in itself, the scientists behind the Allen Coral Atlas say they hope the new resource will spur action to improve coral reef protection.
- The new mapping platform is already being used to support conservation projects in more than 30 countries, including designation of marine protected areas and to inform marine spatial plans.

In Kenya, push-pull method tries to debug organic farming’s pest problem
- Farmers in Kenya are experimenting with the “push-pull” method to deal with insect pests without having to use costly and polluting pesticides.
- The technology involves intercropping food plants with insect-repelling legumes to push the bugs away, and ringing the plots with plants that attract, or pull, them even farther out.
- Working with 642 farmers from 56 villages in eight counties, researchers found that farmers who applied the push-pull method nearly doubled their yields over those of their neighbors.
- While adoption of push-pull farming remains low, in part because of higher labor costs, proponents say it offers a win-win for farmers through higher yields and avoidance of chemical pesticides.

New research hopes to shine a light on wedgefish, the ‘pangolin of the ocean’
- Wedgefish, a type of ray, are some of the least-known and most endangered fish in the ocean.
- A new research project in Mozambique is employing two types of tags, acoustic and satellite, to better understand two of these critically endangered species.
- Researchers aim to uncover the species’ range and habitat requirements to preserve them from extinction.
- Wedgefish are heavily targeted by the shark-fin trade, and their populations have declined precipitously throughout much of their range.

Find my elephant: The conservation apps revolutionizing how rangers work
- Conservationists around the world have increasingly turned to technology to adapt and respond to rising challenges in protected areas.
- One example is EarthRanger, which collects and integrates information from several remote sensors and allows users to visualize data under one platform.
- The software solution helps conservationists with security, ecological management, and human-wildlife conflict, by streamlining conservation data into a system that helps them make informed decisions rapidly.
- While promising, the technology has encountered teething problems: lack of internet infrastructure, the need for an extensive network of sensors, and high data literacy to use the technology.

End of deforestation tracker for Brazil’s Cerrado an ‘incalculable loss’
- For 20 years, Brazil’s space agency, INPE, has run a program monitoring deforestation and fire risk in the Cerrado savanna, a global biodiversity hotspot.
- But that program may be shut down at the end of this year due to a lack of money, after a funding agreement with the World Bank ended last year.
- Scientists, civil society groups, and the soy industry have all spoken out against allowing the program to end, calling it an “incalculable loss”; soy traders, in particular, depend on the data to prove their commodity is deforestation-free.
- INPE’s data is also crucial in guiding the work of environmental regulators, which has grown increasingly urgent in light of projections that the entire biome could collapse within 30 years under current rates of deforestation.

Loss of mangroves dims the light on firefly populations in Malaysia
- Firefly populations along the banks of the Rembau River in Malaysia have declined drastically in the past decade due to habitat loss, a new study has found.
- Researchers, who used satellite imagery to monitor changes in land use, found that conversion of Rembau’s mangroves to oil palm plantations and dryland forests were the top two factors behind the loss.
- Remote-sensing technology could help locals better understand the impact of various land use types on mangrove ecosystems and more efficiently prioritize areas for conservation.

Geopolitical standoff in South China Sea leads to environmental fallout
- Satellite images show significant growth in the occurrence of algal blooms in contested areas in the South China Sea.
- Images suggest that these algal blooms or phytoplankton overgrowth are linked to the presence of vessels anchored in the area and to island-building activities in the region.
- While satellite images help give a preview of the ecological state of the South China Sea, on-site observations are necessary to validate the findings, experts say.
- Decades of territorial and maritime disputes, however, have limited the conduct of studies and dissuaded the establishment of conservation zones in the South China Sea.

New artificial intelligence tool helps forecast Amazon deforestation
- A new tool co-developed by Microsoft using artificial intelligence to predict deforestation hotspots has identified nearly 10,000 square kilometers of the Brazilian Amazon that’s in imminent danger.
- Called PrevisIA, it uses artificial intelligence to analyze satellite imagery from the European Space Agency, and an algorithm developed by the Brazilian conservation nonprofit Imazon to find the areas most prone to deforestation.
- The tool, which the developers say could potentially be applied to any forested area on Earth, will be used for preventive actions, in partnerships with local governments, corporations and nonprofits.
- The next step of the project is to build partnerships with local governments and institutions to act on preventing deforestation, which is the most challenging phase of the project, according to Imazon researcher Carlos Souza Jr.

Drive toward green cars shouldn’t rely on mining seabed, conservationists say
- Conservationists are urging electric car and technology companies not to support or use resources derived from deep-sea mining, an activity that could potentially cause irreparable damage to the marine ecosystem in the process.
- The burgeoning electric car industry relies on a number of minerals for batteries, including lithium, manganese, nickel and cobalt, which are not easily accessible from terrestrial sources.
- Deep-sea mining proponents say that mining polymetallic nodules offers an alternative way to procure much-needed minerals for electric car batteries, but conservationists argue that the risks are too great to ignore.
- Instead of mining the deep sea, conservationists say that the focus should shift to developing electric car batteries that do not require hard-to-get minerals, improving terrestrial mining practices, and expanding battery recycling.

Sharing solutions: How a digital toolkit is strengthening Indigenous voices
- The Earth Defenders Toolkit is a growing collection of apps, resources and blogs where Indigenous peoples and their allies can come together to connect and mobilize.
- The goals of the toolkit are to support local autonomy, allowing Indigenous communities to maintain ownership of data and reduce the need for outside support.
- One successful app within the toolkit, Mapeo, helps Indigenous communities around the world map and monitor environmental and human rights information.
- The toolkit keeps the needs of Indigenous communities at the forefront, overcoming barriers inherent to technology, like participation and security.

New index measuring rainforest vulnerability to sound alarm on tipping points
- The new Tropical Forest Vulnerability Index (TFVI) will use satellite data to assess the impact of growing threats such as land clearance and rising temperatures on forests.
- Backed by the National Geographic Society and Swiss watchmaker Rolex, TFVI aims to identify forests most at risk, to be prioritized for conservation efforts.
- Researchers combined 40 years of satellite measurements and forest observations covering tropical forests worldwide to come up with the standardized monitoring system.
- In recent years, multiple stressors have pushed forests to a tipping point, causing them to gradually lose their ecological functions, including their capacity to store carbon and recycle water, the study says.

Betting big on bioacoustics: Q&A with philanthropist Lisa Yang
- Lisa Yang is an investor and philanthropist who donated $24 million last month to establish the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at the Cornell Lab of Ornithology.
- Yang told Mongabay that she focused on bioacoustics due to the great potential for scaling the effectiveness of conservation efforts: “The technology can provide an effective way of assessing conservation practices.”
- Yang’s philanthropic interests extend to translational neuroscience and fostering opportunities and respect for people who’ve been historically marginalized by society, including the “neurodiverse and individuals with disabilities.”
- Yang spoke about opportunities to scale impact in conservation during a conversation with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Scientists turn to eDNA to curtail the freshwater extinction crisis
- Freshwater ecosystems are understudied and underfunded, resulting in a lack of information on what species are at risk of extinction.
- The eBioAtlas program, a partnership between the IUCN and NatureMetrics, uses environmental DNA gathered from freshwater samples to figure out what freshwater ecosystems to conserve and what species to prioritize.
- So far, a pilot study in southeast Liberia has successfully picked up environmental DNA from nearly 170 species, including some that are critically endangered.
- The new data will provide up-to-date information for the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species and empower local communities to maintain ownership of their land and water resources.

Armed with data and smartphones, Amazon communities boost fight against deforestation
- Equipping Indigenous communities in the Amazon with remote-monitoring technology can reduce illegal deforestation, a new study has found.
- Between 2018 and 2019, researchers implemented technology-based forest-monitoring programs in 36 communities within the Peruvian Amazon.
- Compared with other communities where the program wasn’t implemented, those under the program saw 52% and 21% less deforestation in 2018 and 2019 respectively.
- The gains were concentrated in communities at highest risk of deforestation due to threats like logging and illegal mining.

The conservation gains we’ve made are still fragile, says Aileen Lee of the Moore Foundation
- When Aileen Lee took on the mantle of chief program officer at the Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, she brought substantial experience as a management consultant to a nonprofit that’s the largest private donor of Amazon conservation efforts.
- Like management consultants, she says, grant makers “will never be as close to the realities of the problems” as the groups they help, but can still help them “access resources, knowledge, and networks that might not otherwise be available to them.”
- Lee hails groundbreaking efforts in conservation and philanthropy, including the adoption of technology and greater engagement with a wider range of stakeholders, including Indigenous-led conservation groups.
- In an interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler, Lee discusses the Moore Foundation’s achievements in the Amazon, the impacts of recent setbacks to that work, and the role of young people in forging the future they want.

$10 million XPRIZE Rainforest contest announces 33 qualifying teams
- Thirty-three teams spanning 16 countries from Brazil to India have qualified for the next stage of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition, the organizers announced on World Rainforest Day.
- The $10 million contest, which launched in 2019 and concludes in 2024, aims to develop scalable and affordable technologies for rainforest preservation.
- Over the next three years, competing teams will leverage existing and emerging technologies including robotics, remote sensing, data analysis and artificial intelligence to develop new biodiversity survey tools and produce real-time insights on rainforest health and value.

In fight against wildlife trafficking, Brazil police turn to nuclear science
- New technology can tell if an animal sold in the legal wildlife trade was bred in captivity or captured illegally from the wild.
- Through analysis of stable isotopes in claw and fur samples, police in Brazil’s Amazonas state can now identify an animal’s geographic origin, as well as trace the provenance of timber.
- The new technology helps to uncover wildlife “warming,” the practice by breeders of trying to pass off wild-caught animals as captive-bred.
- Experts say it should also be used to identify catch sites to allow for seized animals to be released in their home locations.

Podcast: It’s an ‘incredibly exciting’ time for the field of bioacoustics
- On this episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we look at why it’s such an “incredibly exciting” time to be involved in the field of conservation bioacoustics — and we listen to some new and favorite wildlife recordings, too.
- Our guest is Laurel Symes, assistant director of the K. Lisa Yang Center for Conservation Bioacoustics at Cornell University’s Lab of Ornithology. Symes tells us about how a new $24 million endowment will allow the center to expand its support for bioacoustics research and technology around the world and why this field is poised to make a huge impact on conservation.
- After our conversation with her, we listen to some of the most interesting bioacoustics recordings we’ve featured on the Mongabay Newscast, including the sounds of elephants, lemurs, gibbons, right whales, humpback whales, and frogs.

Satellites keep watch over global reef health in a world first
- Scientists working with the Allen Coral Atlas just launched the world’s first global, satellite-based reef-monitoring system.
- This tool can track global coral bleaching events in near-real-time and provide an overall view of trends and changes in coral reef health that can be used to inform conservation efforts and policy.
- A beta version of the system that was piloted in Hawai‘i during the 2019 Pacific heat wave, and helped identify bleaching hotspots as well as resilient corals that could be used for reef restoration.

An engaged society is key for the future of African conservation, says WWF Africa’s Alice Ruhweza
- Protecting Africa’s charismatic megafauna often come first to mind when Westerners think about conservation in Africa, but this is a narrow view that doesn’t capture the range of issues involved in conservation efforts across the continent.
- Alice Ruhweza, the regional director for Africa for WWF, says conservation in Africa is about about ecosystems and people: “As the home of humankind, Africa and its ecosystems have evolved together with people. When we talk about conservation in Africa we are really talking about people and nature.”
- Ruhweza says that growing recognition of this connection is driving “a shift to a more people-centered and rights-based conservation,” including within WWF.
- Ruhweza spoke about these issues and more during a recent interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

When a tree falls in the forest, it’s the birds that don’t make a sound, study finds
- A new study evaluated soundscape saturation in a tropical forest in East Kalimantan, Indonesia, before, during and after selective logging activities.
- It found that animal sounds promptly dropped after selective logging, but that the soundscape would recover after about a year. But two or three years after logging, soundscape saturation diminished again.
- Insects appeared to be less affected by selective logging than birds, the study found.
- Another expert not involved in the study says more realistic findings would have been obtained by recording the sounds from random locations in the forest instead of at the specific logging sites.

A new app puts invisible communities in Brazil’s Cerrado on the map
- Thousands of Indigenous, quilombola, and traditional communities live in the Cerrado, the world’s most biodiverse tropical savanna. But many lack access to official titles and deeds, and are not registered on official maps.
- As the agricultural frontier pushes into the northern part of the savanna, land-grabbing and violent attacks are increasing. Many of these communities risk losing their land and their resources upon which they depend.
- Now, a new smartphone app developed in collaboration with communities in the northern Cerrado and two Brazilian NGOs allows communities themselves to register their lands on the app, as well as important local sites and conflicts with farmers and land-grabbers.
- The developers of the app aim to halt the rapid and unequal development that threatens the lives and livelihoods of those working to protect the savanna, and ultimately help conserve the last remaining tracts of native Cerrado.

Illegal fishing: The great threat to Latin America’s marine sanctuaries
- An investigative collaboration by Mongabay Latam, Ciper in Chile, Cuestión Pública in Colombia, and El Universo in Ecuador looked at illegal fishing and the threats it poses to Latin America’s marine sanctuaries.
- The investigation revealed suspected illegal fishing activities in marine protected areas in those three Latin American countries as well as Mexico.
- Many Latin American marine protected areas do not have enough surveillance or budget to prevent these crimes, and in some cases lack even a management plan defining a monitoring strategy.
- It is in this context that foreign fleets, particularly from China, including boats with a history of illegal fishing, also cross marine sanctuaries during their journeys.

We can now see through clouds to detect deforestation in near real-time
- World Resources Institute’s Global Forest Watch can now track deforestation shortly after it occurs despite being obscured by cloud cover. The functionality will greatly improve efforts to monitor tropical deforestation and degradation.
- Radar for Detecting Deforestation (RADD) alerts use radar data from the European Space Agency’s Sentinel-1 satellites, which cover the tropics every 6 to 12 days.
- The long wavelength radio waves can also penetrate smoke and haze, providing insight on forest loss that is occurring in areas that are otherwise shrouded.
- Radar additionally provides a more detailed picture on forest disturbance than Landsat imagery, enabling detection at an earlier stage.

How technology can help us achieve at least 30% ocean protection (commentary)
- A growing number of countries are pledging to protect and conserve at least 30 percent of the ocean by 2030.
- Securing such a vast area requires new cutting-edge technology to monitor illegal activities and movements of species. Luckily, this field has been developing fast with new inventions and tech collaborations.
- The goal can be achieved by combining data from a range of sources, connecting the data to existing systems that rangers use, and engaging the people, communities, and sectors that work closely with the sea.
- This article is a commentary and the views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Saving Africa’s biodiversity is a challenging, but urgent necessity, says Rodger Schlickeisen
- Rodger Schlickeisen made a name for himself in conservation circles from the early 1990s thanks to his leadership at Defenders of Wildlife, which grew rapidly in membership and influence during his 20 years at the helm. The group became known as a staunch advocate for wildlife via its defense of the U.S. Endangered Species Act and conservation policies.
- Schlickeisen left Defenders in 2011 to embark on a second career in conservation as head of the Wildcat Foundation, the philanthropy funded by U.S. investor and businessman David Bonderman. The Wildcat Foundation supports efforts to protect wildlife in Africa, including place-based conservation projects and initiatives that aim to combat the wildlife trade.
- Having worked in conservation in both the U.S. and Africa, Schlickeisen sees similarities and sharp contrasts between the two geographies. Some of the key differences between the U.S. and Africa, he says, are the legal and institutional infrastructure that enable effective conservation.
- Schlickeisen discussed these issues and more in a February 2021 interview with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler. The views expressed in the interview are not necessarily those of Mongabay.

An economic case for competing in the XPRIZE Rainforest contest (commentary)
- In 2019, XPRIZE Rainforest opened its doors and challenged the world to develop new biodiversity assessment technologies by offering a $10 million prize for the best one.
- In this commentary, Jonah Wittkamper, President of the Global Governance Philanthropy Network and co-founder of NEXUS, makes an economic argument for participating in the contest.
- Wittkamper says a great deal of value could be unlocked with the ability to rapidly assess rainforest biodiversity.
- This post is a commentary and does not necessarily reflect the views of Mongabay.

Human impacts leave reefs short on sharks and long on moray eels
- A new study found that moray eels are more abundant on reefs where sharks are absent due to human pressures.
- The paper hypothesizes that moray eels might be benefiting from a reduction in predators and competition for food, although this hasn’t been proven.
- The authors say a lot more research is needed to assess the relationship between sharks and moray eels, and to understand the ecological role moray eels play in the marine environment.

Electronic ears listen to poachers in a key Central American jaguar habitat
- The international NGO Panthera has been using acoustical monitoring systems to support their anti-poaching patrols in Guatemala and Honduras since 2017.
- The acoustical recorders can pick up gunshots, conversations and wildlife sounds, and help rangers plan their patrols to be more effective in combating illegal activities.
- Panthera is particularly concerned about protecting the jaguar, which is threatened by poaching, wildlife trafficking and habitat loss in this region.

“Securing Indigenous guardianship of vital ecosystems”: Q&A with Nia Tero CEO Peter Seligmann
- One of the dominant trends in conservation over the past 20 years has been growing recognition of the contributions Indigenous peoples have made toward conservationists’ goals of protecting biodiversity, wild places, and ecosystem functions.
- This view is a departure from historical conservation approaches, which have tended to marginalize, undervalue, or even criminalize Indigenous peoples. The transition unfolding across conservation is an important development for the sector, but going from talking about change to actually implementing meaningful reforms will be a challenge.
- For these reasons, Peter Seligmann – one of the best-known and most influential figures in conservation – is an important figure to watch. In 2017 Seligmann launched a new organization called Nia Tero that puts Indigenous peoples at the center of its strategy: “For us, it was clear that humanity’s fate is directly dependent upon the ability of nations, and the public, to support Indigenous territorial rights and embrace Indigenous peoples’ belief in the reciprocal relationship between all beings and the Earth.“
- Seligmann spoke about Nia Tero’s ambitions in a February 2021 interview with Mongabay founder Rhett A. Butler.

Fake it till you save it? Synthetic animal parts pose a conservation conundrum
- Thanks to technological advancements, it’s now possible to make synthetic versions of animal parts like rhino horn, elephant ivory, and big cat fur, demand for which is contributing to the extinction crisis.
- Yet this practice is controversial, as some conservation groups assert that selling synthetic parts could actually promote more poaching.
- Proponents of the strategy say more conversations are needed around this possibility, including looking at the issue from an economic perspective.

Lasers find forest gaps to aid tree mortality studies in Brazilian Amazon
- Using airborne light detection and ranging technology, more commonly known as “lidar,” a team of researchers remotely studied tree death and canopy gaps across the Brazilian Amazon.
- Gaps in the forest, the researchers found, were mostly driven by water stress, soil fertility, floodplains and forest degradation. The data also pointed to strong correlations between the patterns of tree gaps and water deficit, a lack of water that can slow down photosynthesis.
- In the southeastern and western Amazon, a pattern of 20 to 35% higher gap dynamics emerged, meaning trees are dying and creating gaps more frequently there than in other regions.
- Aircraft lidar is helpful for studying remote areas of the Amazon and could be used effectively to monitor for illegal logging and deforestation, as well as for calibrating satellite technology.

Video: Romania’s deadly fight against illegal logging
- Romania’s rich and ancient forests are in peril. Since joining the European Union in 2007, the country has seen its forest cover depleted at record levels.
- Rangers and environmentalists who investigate and document these crimes face violence, intimidation and even murder from agents of an extensive criminal network that supplies multinational corporations with timber.
- New technology has become one of the most effective ways for activists to investigate and document environmental crimes.
- In late 2020, activists teamed up with technologists to monitor illegal logging using bio-acoustic devices hidden in treetops. The devices record sound patterns in the forest, sending instant alerts to rangers who can intervene to stop the theft in its tracks.

Podcast: What are the tropical forest storylines to watch in 2021?
- Happy new year to all of our faithful Mongabay Newscast listeners! For our first episode of the year, we take stock of how the world’s rainforests fared in 2020 and look ahead to the major stories to watch in 2021.
- We’re joined by Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett Butler, who discusses the impacts of the Covid pandemic on tropical forest conservation efforts, the most important issues likely to impact rainforests in 2021, and why he remains hopeful despite setbacks in recent years.
- We also speak with Joe Eisen, executive director of Rainforest Foundation UK, who helps us dig deeper into the major issues and events that will affect Africa’s rainforests in the coming year.

How to transform systems: Q&A with WRI’s Andrew Steer
- Between the pandemic, rising food insecurity and poverty, and catastrophic disasters like wildfires, storms and droughts, 2020 was a year of challenges that prompted widespread calls for systemic change in how we interact with one another, with other species, and with the environment. Bringing about such changes will require transforming how we produce food and energy, how we move from one place to another, and how we define economic growth.
- But it’s a lot easier to talk about transforming systems than to actually do it. Because real change is hard, we’re more likely to slip back into old habits and return to business as usual than embrace paradigm shifts.
- Recognizing this limitation, World Resources Institute (WRI), a Washington, D.C.-based organization that operates in 60 countries, works across sectors by creating tools that increase transparency, create a common understanding, and provide data and analysis that enable action.
- WRI’s development of these platforms and tools has grown by leaps and bounds since the early 2010s when Andrew Steer joined the organization as president and CEO from the World Bank. Steer spoke with Mongabay during a December 2020 interview.

Bold sustainability commitments: An interview with Microsoft’s Lucas Joppa
- One of the boldest climate commitments in 2020 came from the tech giant Microsoft, which in January pledged to be carbon negative by 2030 and to address its legacy emissions–all the carbon the company has emitted since its founding in 1975–by 2050.
- Microsoft has also committed to replenish more water than it consumes and produce zero net waste by 2030, while protecting more land than it uses by 2025. Further, the company said it would lend its computing power toward efforts to combat biodiversity loss and use its voice to advocate for public policies that “measure and manage ecosystems.”
- Heading up these ambitious sustainability initiatives is Microsoft’s chief environmental officer Lucas Joppa, a Ph.D. ecologist who also conceived of Microsoft’s AI for Earth platform.
- Joppa spoke with Mongabay Founder Rhett A. Butler in a December 2020 interview.

Podcast: Lemur love and award-winning plant passion in Madagascar
- We’ve got recordings of indri lemurs and the architect of 11 new protected areas that aim to protect Madagascar’s rich biodiversity of plant life on this episode of the Mongabay Newscast.
- We’re joined by Jeannie Raharimampionana, a Malagasy botanist who has identified 80 priority areas for conservation of plant life in her country and has already turned 11 of those areas into officially decreed protected areas.
- We’re also joined by Valeria Torti, who uses bioacoustics to improve conservation of critically endangered indri lemurs in Madagascar’s Maromizaha forest. She plays for us a number of recordings of the primates’ songs.

As energy needs drive demand for minerals, forests face greater threats
- Rising demand for energy, especially from renewable sources, looks set to increase pressure on the world’s forests, as many of minerals used in solar panels, wind turbines and battery storage are mined in sensitive forest areas.
- A World Bank concept called “forest-smart mining” claims to mitigate the negative impacts of mining on forests, but given the complex nature of the extractive industries, its real-life applicability has come into question.
- While poor governance is often the biggest challenge to efficient forest management, experts emphasize that only a radical reflection of human energy consumption can bring real change.

Whale zone ahead: A cetacean speed trap tags ships going over the limit
- North Atlantic right whales, a critically endangered species with fewer than 366 remaining individuals, face two main threats: fishing gear entanglements and ship strikes.
- Many ships do not obey voluntary or mandatory speed restrictions in areas where North Atlantic right whales are present, raising the risk of fatal collisions.
- A new tool called Ship Speed Watch provides information on vessels that are not obeying speed restrictions.
- Conservationists say they hope it will help build awareness and strengthen regulations surrounding ship speeds.

Where to patrol next: ‘Netflix’ of ranger AI serves up poaching predictions
- The PAWS AI system, developed out of Harvard University, uses data about past poaching and game theory to predict where rangers are most likely to find poaching activity next.
- PAWS has been field tested in Cambodia and Uganda, and will soon roll out worldwide, available with the next update of a global data tool called SMART.
- Subsequent versions of the system will also feature a tool that recommends the best route for rangers to travel in their patrols.

Esri co-founder Jack Dangermond: ‘People and planet are inextricably linked’
- The digital mapping platforms developed by Esri, including ArcGIS, have revolutionized conservation and environmental planning, management and policymaking.
- Esri co-founder Jack Dangermond calls geographic information systems (GIS) “a sort of intelligent nervous system for our planet at a time when humanity desperately needs one to address the environmental and humanitarian crises at hand.”
- He credits Esri’s success to a sustainable trajectory of heavy investment in R&D, not being beholden to outside investors, and providing discounted and free use of its software to environmental nonprofits.
- In this interview with Mongabay founder and CEO Rhett A. Butler, Dangermond says that technology, amid the current fractured political climate, should be employed to encourage understanding rather than dwell on divisions.

The rhino in the room: 3D scan brings near-extinct Sumatran species to virtual life
- Technologist Corey Jaskolski created the world’s first 3D digital copy of a Sumatran rhino to help educate the world about the critically endangered species.
- There are only about 80 Sumatran rhinos remaining in Indonesia, and the biggest threat to the species is being so isolated that they can’t find others to mate with.
- Jaskolski’s 3D scanning and AI technology can also be used for other purposes in conservation, such as species identification and anti-poaching efforts.

Podcast: A radio program is helping save critically endangered gorillas in Nigeria
- Community-based conservation measures are key to protecting the Cross River gorilla, and a radio program that reaches as many as 4 million listeners in Nigeria is encouraging local community members to become active participants in conservation.
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Hillary Chukwuemeka, host of the radio program, which is called “My Gorilla My Community.” Chukwuemeka talks about why radio is an effective medium for community engagement in Nigeria and the impacts he’s seen from time spent in local communities on the front lines of conservation.
- We’re also joined by Inaoyom Imong, program director for the Cross River landscape with Wildlife Conservation Society Nigeria and a member of the IUCN Primate Specialist Group, who discusses the major threats to Cross River gorillas, the main barriers to their conservation, and why community-based conservation measures are so important in this context.

Don’t cross this tiger mom: Close encounter in Russia’s Far East
- A researcher working for the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) in Russia had a close encounter with an Amur tiger and her cub in the Sikhote-Alin Biosphere Reserve in mid-September.
- Amur tigers are considered to be endangered species, with fewer than 600 believed to be living in China and Russia.
- The biggest threat to Amur tigers is poaching, although conservationists say that recent changes in Russian law have made is easier to convict hunters and traffickers.

The view from above: How do we know what’s really burning in the Amazon?
- As of September 10, 2020 more than a thousand major blazes had occurred in the Amazon this year — making it one of the worst fire years ever.
- The COVID-19 pandemic means there are fewer observers, including media organizations, on the ground this year to report fires to the world, leaving the bulk of the job to satellite fire detection systems.
- This Mongabay exclusive story offers an overview of some of the top organizations doing satellite fire monitoring in Amazonia, as well as explaining the types of detection systems getting the job done — read on and you’ll learn the vital differences between “aerosol emissions” and “hot spot detection,” and much more.
- But no matter how good these observational systems become — even as they inform the world of what’s happening in the Amazon — monitoring won’t be fully useful until the Brazilian government takes effective action and uses revolutionary “near real time” fire data to protect the greatest extant rainforest on Earth.

Philippine wildlife reporting app promises to upgrade fight against trafficking
- The Philippines’ environment department plans a year-end rollout of an app, currently being tested, that should make it easier for citizens and enforcement officials to report wildlife crimes.
- Illegal wildlife trafficking is the fourth-biggest transnational crime in the world, following the trafficking of drugs, people, and weapons; in the Philippines, the trade is estimated at $1 billion a year, and threatens the country’s unique wildlife, of which many species are found nowhere else.
- The WildALERT app is designed to overcome one of the main problems with reporting any kind of crime from remote areas — patchy internet reception — by using an offline mode that allows users to enter photographic and location data on-site and upload it when they get reception.
- The app also has a library feature, essentially a Facebook for endangered species, to allow users to quickly identify and report species they encounter; the lack of specialist knowledge is currently one of the big gaps in the existing campaign against the illegal wildlife trade.

Facial recognition tech for chimps looks to bust online ape trafficking
- Much of the illegal trade in apes now takes place online, with traffickers posting pictures of baby animals for sale.
- ChimpFace, a newly developed software, uses an algorithm to determine if chimpanzee faces in images posted by traffickers match up with images later posted to social media accounts.
- Its creators hope the matches the program turns up will aid Interpol or local law enforcement in tracking and prosecuting people illegally buying and selling wildlife.

Study: Chinese ‘dark fleets’ illegally defying sanctions by fishing in North Korean waters
- The study used a novel combination of satellite imagery to track more than 900 Chinese fishing vessels operating in North Korea in 2017, and an additional 700 in 2018.
- The vessels were harvesting Todarodes pacificus, also known as Pacific flying squid, a key staple food in the region.
- The U.N. Security Council passed sanctions on North Korea in late 2017, making any international fishing inside its borders a violation of international law.
- Unable to compete with the more technologically advanced Chinese vessels, local North Korean fishermen have been forced to make long, perilous journeys into Russian waters.

What is the yellow-throated marten? Candid Animal Cam investigates
- Every Tuesday, Mongabay brings you a new episode of Candid Animal Cam, our show featuring animals caught on camera traps around the world and hosted by Romi Castagnino, our writer and conservation scientist.

Does Lucius Fox know? Tiny tech tracks bats (and more)
- A newly developed tracking device that fits like a tiny backpack allows scientists to monitor small animals.
- The wireless biologging network (WBN) device allows for proximity sensing, high-resolution tracking, and long-range remote data download all at the same time.
- The capability of the WBN device to track associations is providing scientists with new insights into animal behavior and conservation solutions.
- The device, weighing just 2 grams (0.07 ounces), is designed to be glued onto the back of animals like bats and eventually fall off after a few weeks.

Mug shots and public pics join the dots of whale sharks’ Southeast Asian trips
- A study blending old and new techniques has recorded young whale sharks returning to the same spot in the Philippines after visiting Malaysia and Indonesia.
- Scientists recorded the second-biggest aggregation of whale sharks in the Philippines in Honda Bay in the province of Palawan.
- Compared to other whale shark groups in the Philippines, the one in Honda Bay is made up mostly of juvenile males that feed on small fish and krill.
- The discovery underscores the need for stronger collaboration between the Philippines, Malaysia and Indonesia, all part of the Sulu-Sulawesi Seascape Project under the Coral Triangle Initiative.

Philippines bids farewell to satellite that launched enviro policy into the space age
- Diwata-1, the Philippines’ first microsatellite, has ended its four years in Earth orbit, burning up in the atmosphere on April 6.
- The microsatellite captured more than 17,000 images of the Philippines, covering 38% of the country’s land area.
- Diwata-1 ushered in an age of Earth satellite observation in the Philippines, contributing to science-based approaches to planning, conservation, risk management, and mapping.
- Scientists involved in the program say they hope that analyses and reports culled from the country’s Earth observation technology can help in policymaking and decision-making.

Painstaking mapping initiative helps indigenous Peruvians defend their land
- For five years, the indigenous Matsés people of the Peruvian Amazon region of Loreto explored their territory to georeference everything of cultural value to them.
- Now, all of those places are included on a map in the Matsés language.
- The map will be used to protect their lands from encroachment and development concessions, as well as to teach young people and children about respecting their cultural heritage.

Reviving an ancient way of aquaculture at Hawaii’s Heʻeia fishpond
- A 2017-2020 restoration project was plagued by rain, king tides, and storms, including Hurricane Lane, but researchers believe the ponds themselves “can support good growth rates and good survival.”
- The ponds are a model of sustainability: often built at the mouths of streams, they support fish that feed on algae and seaweed in the silty environment.
- Unlike contemporary aquaculture systems, they require no input of feed and are largely self-sustaining, needing minimal management and maintenance once established.

Wireless grids and towers of power: Engineering our way out of dirty energy
- Engineers have explored harnessing gravity, tapping the unique structures of smelly fruit, and shrinking a planetary idea down to household size.
- Meeting current energy demands with renewable energies is vital to meet climate goals and prevent ecological collapse, but energy technologies rely on hundreds of years of fossil fuel innovation.
- Mongabay explored some intriguing new approaches and talked with innovators who are helping to think our way out of the climate crisis.

Audio: Shah Selbe on how open source technology is creating new opportunities for conservation
- On today’s episode of the Mongabay Newscast, we speak with Shah Selbe, an engineer and technologist who founded Conservify, a conservation tech lab that uses open-source technologies to empower local communities and solve some of the most pressing conservation challenges of our time.
- Selbe is literally a rocket scientist who spent a decade building and launching satellites with Boeing before getting into conservation tech. These days he’s helping deploy technologies like drones, sensor networks, smartphone apps, and acoustic monitoring buoys to stop illegal poaching, monitor protected areas, and protect biodiversity.
- Selbe joins us today to talk about his journey from rocket science to conservation science, the open-source hardware and online platform Conservify is developing called FieldKit, and the conservation tech he’s most excited about.

Philippine fruit bats may be entirely new species of their own, DNA suggests
- A recently published genetic study on fruit bats found in the Philippines revealed high genetic difference among island groups and compared to the Southeast Asian region, which could mean they either need to be reclassified as subspecies or be elevated as new species.
- The study covered 19 of the 27 fruit bat species native to the Philippines, which were assessed using a DNA barcoding technology in a six-year study.
- Five of the species were revealed to have 6 to 7% genetic distance from specimens elsewhere in Southeast Asia, possibly justifying the need to name them distinct populations of their own, the researchers say.
- DNA barcoding is part of a growing international effort to create a genetic database to improve wildlife forensics, aid in curbing wildlife trafficking and help implement more efficient species-focused conservation efforts.

Rare plant species are especially vulnerable to climate change, and rarity is more common than previously understood
- Researchers from around the world spent 10 years compiling a database that now includes 20 million observational records of plant species occurrence, which they say is the largest dataset on botanical biodiversity ever created.
- They found that there are about 435,000 unique land plant species on planet Earth, and that a large fraction of them, 36.5% or some 158,535 species, can be considered “exceedingly rare,” meaning that they have only been observed and recorded anywhere in the world up to five times. In fact, 28.3% of the world’s plants, or 123,149 species, have been observed just three times or less, per the study.
- The research team found that rare species are clustered in a handful of rarity hotspots, and that global warming and the impacts of human land use are already disproportionately impacting the regions that harbor most of these rare plant species.

From trash to cash: How a Thai entrepreneur turned used flip-flops into a sustainable business model
- A university team in Thailand named “Tlejourn” has created a profitable product from discarded flip-flops. Of the 5.25 trillion pieces of trash floating in the ocean, old flip-flops are one of the most commonly found items.
- Although flip-flops are not recyclable, Tlejourn upcycles them into new, solid mats, which are then use to make new footware. Tlejourn’s footwear is handmade by low-income families in southern Thailand, providing them with a significant financial boost.
- With Tlejourn’s help, Thai shoe manufacturer Nanyang created a new product line of sandals made from discarded flip-flops. Inspired by Tlejourn’s success, other trash collecting initiatives, like Trash Hero, now experiment to find other ways to turn trash into cash.

2019: The year rainforests burned
- 2019 closed out a “lost decade” for the world’s tropical forests, with surging deforestation from Brazil to the Congo Basin, environmental policy roll-backs, assaults on environmental defenders, abandoned conservation commitments, and fires burning through rainforests on four continents.
- The following review covers some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year.

Conservation biologist and wildtech journalist Sue Palminteri, 1965-2019
- Sue Palminteri — Mongabay’s wildtech editor, conservation biologist, professional tennis player, and long-time exercise enthusiast — lost her battle with cancer on November 30th. She was 54.
- Whether it was radio-collaring elephants across the savannas of South Africa, competing internationally alongside the Israeli national team in tennis, tracking saki monkeys through the rainforest in the sweltering mid-day heat of the Peruvian Amazon, or evaluating the practicalities of implementing technological solutions to conservation challenges, Sue fully embraced all she pursued with rare tenaciousness, passion, and grace.
- Her persistence and intelligence enabled her to excel as an athlete, a conservation biologist, and a journalist, while her authenticity, upbeat nature, and companionship made her a good colleague, friend, and partner.

Camera traps yield surprises in West Africa’s largest protected area
- The first camera study of wildlife in Burkina Faso and Niger has shown that the main human activities in the region’s largest protected area are gathering resources and grazing livestock.
- Poaching remains a threat, but it occurs less frequently than other human pressures on the region’s wildlife.
- The findings suggest possible changes in management strategies for three national parks in West Africa.

$10M in prize money for mapping rainforest biodiversity
- XPRIZE has established a $10 million prize to support the development of technology that enables rapid assessment of rainforest biodiversity.
- XPRIZE hopes the initiative will help address the perceived value gap between living and felled rainforest.
- Current efforts to survey rainforest biodiversity often employ a combination of technology — like camera traps, audio sensors, and remote sensing from drones to airplanes to satellites — and old-fashioned boots-on-the-ground surveys.
- But approaches have been limited by the challenge of hot and humid conditions, dense canopy cover, remoteness, and the sheer diversity of species of tropical rainforests.

Tree-planting programs turn to tech solutions to track effectiveness
- Governments and organizations around the world have carried out massive tree-planting initiatives, but to date there’s been no reliable way to track how effective these programs have been.
- Now, some groups are embracing cutting-edge technology solutions such as QR codes, drone surveillance and blockchain to keep tabs on every tree planted.
- But they also recognize the importance of bringing local communities on board to improve the effectiveness of these efforts, and the need for old-fashioned field surveys to complement the high-tech monitoring methods.

New assessment method finds close to one-third of tropical Africa’s plants are potentially facing extinction
- A new study, published today in the journal Science Advances, uses a novel methodology based on key components of the IUCN Red List’s assessment process to discern the potential conservation status of tropical flora at the continental scale.
- Researchers tested the new assessment method using the recently developed RAINBIO database, which consists of over 600,000 geo-referenced occurrence records of more than 20,000 vascular plant species in tropical Africa.
- The research team found that 17.3 percent of the 22,036 vascular plant species included in the study are likely threatened, while 14.4 percent are potentially threatened. That means that nearly one-third — 31.7 percent — of tropical Africa’s vascular plant species might be at risk of going extinct.

How bioacoustics can transform conservation – Wildtech event in Palo Alto
- On October 17th Mongabay is holding a WildTech discussion panel on the potential for bioacoustic monitoring to transform conservation. The event is being hosted by the Patagonia store in Palo Alto, CA.
- Panel participants include University of Wisconsin ecologist Zuzana Burivalova, Conservation Metrics CEO Matthew McKown, and Mongabay Founder Rhett A. Butler.
- Doors open at 6:30 pm for snacks, beverages, and networking. The panel discussion begins at 7:15 pm.
- Admission is free but space is limited, so please RSVP.

New app tracks down forest fires in Bolivia
- A new app uses aerosol data and recent satellite images to find fires in the forests of Bolivia in real time.
- The application’s creators, from the Monitoring of the Andean Amazon Project, say the novel use of the aerosol data, originally intended to monitor air quality, represents a significant advance over traditional, temperature-related alerts.
- According to the NGO Friends of Nature Foundation, more than 41,000 square kilometers (15,800 square miles) of Bolivia has burned in 2019.

Satellite images from Planet reveal devastating Amazon fires in near real-time
- While many of the images currently being shared on social media and by news outlets are from past fires, satellites can provide a near real-time view of what’s unfolding in the Amazon.
- With near-daily overflights and high-resolution imagery, Planet’s constellation of satellites is providing a clear look at some of the fires now burning in the Brazilian Amazon.
- Beyond dramatic snapshots, those images also provide data that can be mined for critical insights on what’s happening in the Amazon on a basin-wide scale.

Indonesia, facing a waste crisis, plans to burn it for electricity
- The Indonesian government has targeted four cities in Java island to build incineration facilities this year to tackle the country’s plastic waste crisis.
- Environmentalists say burning waste to generate electricity is not a sustainable solution to the issue, and will only add more problems, including the emission of toxic gases.
- They instead suggest tackling the problem at the source, by reducing the amount of waste produced in the first place.
- Indonesia is the world’s second-biggest source of the plastic trash that ends up in the oceans, after China.

On public interest in conservation and internet data (commentary)
- Conservationists can capture data and use it to generate useful insights for conservation on the relationship between humans and nature. Research in this area falls within the scope of the field of conservation culturomics, the study of human culture through the quantitative analysis of digital data.
- Several studies have used internet search-engine data to evaluate public interest in conservation. These studies were subjected to a few criticisms, however, including the fact that raw data are unavailable due to proprietary constraints. In response to these criticisms, a recent study proposed a methodological work-around — an important contribution that merits praise but should be interpreted with caution.
- Does this mean we should forfeit any hopes that internet data and digital methods can provide useful insights for conservation? Certainly not! The application of digital methods to conservation has immense potential, but also faces challenges inherent to any new development.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Earth’s hidden tree-microbe network mapped for the first time ever
- For the first time ever, researchers have mapped the underground network of microbes connecting forest trees around the world using an enormous data set of more than 1.1 million forest plots.
- Mapping the forest microbe network required global collaboration and high computing capabilities.
- The new maps confirm patterns that have been long suspected. For example, arbuscular mycorrhizal fungi dominate forests in the warmer tropics while ectomycorrhizal fungi are more widespread in colder boreal and temperate forests.
- The predicted maps are, however, limited by the geographic coverage and sampling density of trees across the world. While the coverage is good in developed countries, it is relatively poor in developing countries like India, China and countries in the tropical region, the researchers say.

The health of penguin chicks points scientists to changes in the ocean
- A recent closure of commercial fishing around South Africa’s Robben Island gave scientists the chance to understand how fluctuations in prey fish populations affect endangered African penguins (Spheniscus demersus) absent pressure from humans.
- The researchers found that the more fish were available, the better the condition of the penguin chicks that rely on their parents for food.
- This link between prey abundance in the sea and the condition of penguin chicks on land could serve as an indicator of changes in the ecosystem.

Hunting for rare plants in inaccessible spots: Q&A with drone pilot Ben Nyberg
- For decades, botanists at the National Tropical Botanical Garden (NTBG) in Hawaii have rappelled down dangerously steep cliff faces using ropes, hung out of helicopters and walked through some very remote valleys to look for, and conserve, rare, native plants. Several cliffs and valleys, however, have remained inaccessible.
- Drones are now helping the NTBG staff access and survey some of these difficult-to-reach parts of the Hawaiian islands.
- Mongabay recently spoke with Ben Nyberg, a GIS coordinator and drone specialist at NTBG, about the use of drones for plant conservation.

’Unprecedented’ loss of biodiversity threatens humanity, report finds
- The U.N.’s Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services released a summary of far-reaching research on the threats to biodiversity on May 6.
- The findings are dire, indicating that around 1 million species of plants and animals face extinction.
- The full 1,500-page report, to be released later this year, raises concerns about the impacts of collapsing biodiversity on human well-being.

Drone rediscovers Hawaiian flower thought to be extinct
- A drone surveying a cliff face in a remote part of Kalalau Valley in Hawaii’s Kaua‘i Island has confirmed the presence of Hibiscadelphus woodii, a relative of hibiscus that was last seen alive in 2009, and thought to be extinct.
- Biologists first spotted four H. woodii plants in March 1991, but three of the plants were crushed and killed by falling boulders between 1995 and 1998. The remaining known individual was last observed alive in 2009, and then seen dead in 2011.
- However, by flying into difficult-to-reach areas, drones are uncovering secrets of previously unexplored cliff habitats.

Mobile app encourages Indian fishers to free entangled whale sharks
- When whale sharks in waters off the Indian state of Gujarat get trapped in fishing nets, a new mobile app lets fishers easily document their release.
- Conservationists and fishers alike hope the app will speed up the compensation fishers receive for damaged nets.
- However, fishers say the compensation, a maximum of 25,000 rupees ($360), should be increased to reflect the true loss of their revenue during their downtime without nets.

How digital technologies can transform nature conservation engagement (commentary)
- At this crucial time, a digital leap can provide an opportunity to drastically improve individuals’ engagement in nature conservation by addressing the gaps in the current customer experience preventing more people from getting involved.
- Our market research indicates that 82 percent of donors do not fully know where their money is going or whether is having an impact. Donors get frustrated by their inability to track the impact of their donation and select the specific location, project, or wildlife they would like to support. This limited user experience lags behind digital norms and makes it particularly challenging to compel more people to get involved.
- People should not have to sacrifice transparency and ease-of-use to reap the benefits of supporting nature conservation. With advanced consumer demands and technology trends, there is an opportunity for improved engagement models that address the current gaps.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Reducing human-elephant encounters with calls, texts, and digital signs
- The Hassan district of Karnataka, India has been a hotbed of human-elephant encounters for years and a challenge for forest authorities, who have been translocating crop-raiding elephants for decades.
- Researchers have replicated an elephant alert system that combines signs, voice calls, and text messaging used in the elephant corridors of neighboring Tamil Nadu’s Valparai region to reduce negative interactions between people and elephants in Hassan.
- Using familiar technologies, the new system has reduced annual human fatalities in the region from several to nearly zero.

Marine protected areas are getting SMART (commentary)
- This year, World Wildlife Day will celebrate life in the world’s oceans. It’s a fitting tribute. Oceans cover more than 70 percent of the world’s surface, harbor hundreds of thousands of species, and provide important resources to coastal communities that house more than 35 percent of the global population.
- Oceans also face significant threats, including overexploitation. Marine Protected Areas (MPAs) are central to the efforts to protect Earth’s seas and the wildlife that call them home. In recent years, there has been a surge in their creation.
- In order for this strategy to succeed, though, new and existing MPAs must be managed effectively. The Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) was developed by the SMART Partnership, a collaboration of nine global conservation organizations to improve the performance of protected areas, both on land and at sea, and better use limited resources.
- This post is a commentary. The views expressed are those of the author, not necessarily Mongabay.

Study finds people apt to shrug off extreme weather as normal
- A new study published Feb. 25 that tracked Twitter posts on weather-related topics has found that people are quick to accept unusual weather as normal.
- The researchers calculated that we humans set our baseline for what we consider normal weather from what we’ve experienced in just the past two to eight years.
- The authors of the study write that, as people get used to wilder swings in temperature and other weather patterns, they might be reticent to find ways to deal with climate change or even see it as a problem.

Audio: The sounds of a rare New Zealand bird reintroduced to its native habitat
- On today’s episode, we speak with Oliver Metcalf, lead author of a recent study that used bioacoustic recordings and machine learning to track birds in New Zealand after they’d been reintroduced into the wild.
- In this Field Notes segment, Metcalf plays some of the recordings of the hihi, also known as the stitchbird, that informed his research and explains how bioacoustic monitoring can help improve reintroduction programs.

Urbanization in Asia provides a window of hope for tigers, study finds
- The transition to cities by Asia’s human population is likely to affect the continent’s remaining tiger populations, according to a new study.
- Depending on policy decisions around migration, urbanization, education and economics, the trend toward urbanization could provide more space for tiger numbers to rebound.
- A team of researchers modeled five different “socioeconomic pathways” for the continent, showing that a focus on sustainable living could result in fewer than 40 million people living within the tiger’s range by the end of the century.
- But that number could also balloon to more than 106 million people if countries veer away from international cooperation and poor management of urbanization.

Tech prize encourages solutions to threats from invasive species
- The second round of the Con X Tech Prize offers 20 awards of $3,500 each, plus the chance to win the $20,000 grand prize, to help beginning inventors develop their ideas for solving conservation problems into prototypes.
- The challenge particularly encourages interdisciplinary teams to generate technological ideas to address the threats to economies and ecosystems from invasive species, though it welcomes submissions to help other conservation challenges as well.
- Teams must submit their proposals by March 13, 2019 to the Conservation X Labs Digital Makerspace.

‘Ecosystem guardians’ remain passionate despite dicey conditions
- A recent investigation conducted by several conservation groups has found that working conditions for wildlife rangers in Central America are difficult and in some cases dangerous.
- Most of the rangers surveyed reported facing life-threatening situations during the course of their duties.
- However, these ‘ecosystem guardians’ also remain passionate about their role in protecting Central America’s natural treasures.

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