AI for Conservation

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Artificial intelligence is increasingly being used in the field to analyse information collected by wildlife conservationists, from camera trap and satellite images to audio recordings. AI can learn how to identify which photos out of thousands contain rare species; or pinpoint an animal call out of hours of field recordings - hugely reducing the manual labour required to collect vital conservation data.

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With new technologies revolutionizing data collection, wildlife researchers are becoming increasingly able to collect data at much higher volumes than ever before. Now we are facing the challenges of putting this information to use, bringing the science of big data into the conservation arena. With the help of machine learning tools, this area holds immense potential for conservation practices. The applications range from online trafficking alerts to species-specific early warning systems to efficient movement and biodiversity monitoring and beyond.

However, the process of building effective machine learning tools depends upon large amounts of standardized training data, and conservationists currently lack an established system for standardization. How to best develop such a system and incentivize data sharing are questions at the forefront of this work. There are currently multiple AI-based conservation initiatives, including Wildlife Insights and WildBook, that are pioneering applications on this front.

This group is the perfect place to ask all your AI-related questions, no matter your skill level or previous familiarity! You'll find resources, meet other members with similar questions and experts who can answer them, and engage in exciting collaborative opportunities together.

Just getting started with AI in conservation? Check out our introduction tutorial, How Do I Train My First Machine Learning Model? with Daniel Situnayake, and our Virtual Meetup on Big Data. If you're coming from the more technical side of AI/ML, Sara Beery runs an AI for Conservation slack channel that might be of interest. Message her for an invite.

Header Image: Dr Claire Burke / @CBurkeSci

Explore the Basics: AI

Understanding the possibilities for incorporating new technology into your work can feel overwhelming. With so many tools available, so many resources to keep up with, and so many innovative projects happening around the world and in our community, it's easy to lose sight of how and why these new technologies matter, and how they can be practically applied to your projects.

Machine learning has huge potential in conservation tech, and its applications are growing every day! But the tradeoff of that potential is a big learning curve - or so it seems to those starting out with this powerful tool!

To help you explore the potential of AI (and prepare for some of our upcoming AI-themed events!), we've compiled simple, key resources, conversations, and videos to highlight the possibilities:

Three Resources for Beginners:

Everything I know about Machine Learning and Camera Traps, Dan Morris | Resource library, camera traps, machine learning
Using Computer Vision to Protect Endangered Species, Kasim Rafiq | Machine learning, data analysis, big cats
Resource: WildID | WildID

Three Forum Threads for Beginners:

I made an open-source tool to help you sort camera trap images | Petar Gyurov, Camera Traps
Batch / Automated Cloud Processing | Chris Nicolas, Acoustic Monitoring
Looking for help with camera trapping for Jaguars: Software for species ID and database building | Carmina Gutierrez, AI for Conservation

Three Tutorials for Beginners:

How do I get started using machine learning for my camera traps? | Sara Beery, Tech Tutors
How do I train my first machine learning model? | Daniel Situnayake, Tech Tutors
Big Data in Conservation | Dave Thau, Dan Morris, Sarah Davidson, Virtual Meetups

Want to know more about AI, or have your specific machine learning questions answered by experts in the WILDLABS community? Make sure you join the conversation in our AI for Conservation group!

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@Helga_Kuechly
| she/her

World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

I am a Geo-ecologist, who loves to use GIS, remote sensing, citizen science and knowledge transfer to shape for a better future for nature - We are part of nature, so let's act like it!

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@lconfuron
| Laetitia

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@Dominique

Ranger Campus

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@womble
| he/him

AI Researcher, with 30+ years experience in academia and industry. Currently consulting for a company using drone imagery to analyse property heat loss. Expertise in machine learning, NLP, python, Google Cloud. https://julianrichardson.net

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@Priyanka_Adhikari

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@moises.escalona

I am a herpetologist interested in bioacoustics, evolution and conservation biology. Currently, I am a postdoc fellow at Universidade Federal de Santa Maria (UFSM), Brazil.

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@Harsha
| He/Him

I am a marine biologist / acoustic ecologist from Australia. Fascinated by bioacoustics, I always look forward to learning from people in conservation!

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@NoraNoel

Holder of BSc in Applied Zoology. Assistant Ecologist at Ruaha National park.

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@Lnovo

University of Zurich

PhD student at the University of Zürich (CH) in PopEcol group, working with camera traps and mammals

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@fsattar
| Farook

Farook Sattar received his Technical Licentiate and PhD degrees from Lund University, Sweden. He obtained his B.Eng and M.Eng degrees from Bangladesh University of Engineering & Technology (BUET), Dhaka in Electrical and Electronics Engineering.

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@sroilo
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@nabilla.nuril
| She/Her

University College London (UCL)

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Description	Activity	Replies	Groups	Updated
+1 Ground Truth: How Are You Verifying What Maps Show?	One of our goals with explorer.land is to bridge satellite data and on-the-ground perspectives — helping teams combine field updates,...		AI for Conservation, Geospatial, Open Source Solutions, Sensors	4 months ago
DeepFaune v.1.3 is out!	Hi, just wanted to let whoever is interested that v.1.3 of DeepFaune is out! Deepfaune is a software that runs on any standard...		Camera Traps, AI for Conservation, Open Source Solutions	4 months ago
scikit-maad community	New stable release : v1.5.1We are pleased to announce the latest release with several important enhancement, fixes and documentation improvements to ensure compatibility with the...	+15	Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Open Source Solutions, Software Development	4 months ago
Looking for PhD position	Hi all, I'm Vainqueur BULAMBO. I'm looking for a fully funded PhD opportunity in ecological data science or conservation...		Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects	4 months 1 week ago
Ecology Georeferencing - A dataset	A nice work from @dmorris! See his LK post. "Lots of information in the conservation literature is represented in maps (e.g., the...		AI for Conservation, Geospatial	4 months 2 weeks ago
Has anyone combined flying drone surveys with AI for counting wild herds?	Hi all, I'm the founder of a company in Texas that provides thermal drone surveying for private game ranches. Right now, we're doing everything completely manually in terms of...	+20	AI for Conservation	4 months 2 weeks ago
WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - BumbleBuzz: automatic recognition of bumblebee species and behaviour from their buzzing sounds	Really looking forward to following this project. I'm very curious how you'll be able to tease out different species, particularly among species that feature a variety of worker...		Acoustics, AI for Conservation	4 months 3 weeks ago
Ai agents for conservation	I am interested in the use of Large Language Models (LLMs) for conservation, specifically in how they can be improved with Retrieval-...		AI for Conservation	4 months 3 weeks ago
Nature Tech Unconference - Anyone attending?	Yep see you on friday	+3	Geospatial, Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Community Base, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools	4 months 3 weeks ago
Generative AI for simulating landscapes before and after restoration activities	Yep we are working on it 1/ segment 2/remote unwanted ecosytem3/get local potential habitat4/generate5/add to picture		Geospatial, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools, Open Source Solutions, Software Development	4 months 3 weeks ago
United Nations Open Source Principles	All sound, would be nice if there were only 5, though!		AI for Conservation, Citizen Science, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Funding and Finance, Geospatial, Open Source Solutions, Software Development	4 months 3 weeks ago
Subject: “Baa-bridge” – AI Sheep Stress Reduction, Seeking Genius Input!	I'm sure others here can comment better than I on models for classifying animal sounds, but from an ML pint of view, a key concern is getting enough data. 10 recordings does not...		AI for Conservation, Animal Movement, Human-Wildlife Coexistence	4 months 4 weeks ago

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