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Conservation Tech Training and Education / Feed

There are educators everywhere working to teach and train the next generation of sustainability minded students. Whether in formal settings (K-12, undergraduate, graduate) settings or informally as science communication now it is more important than ever to work towards advancing Conservation Tech education. By working on interdisciplinary teams we can help develop teaching and training tools to help expand the field of Conservation Technology creation.

Group curators

Suzanne Stathatos
Suzanne’s drive to protect the natural world led her to graduate school at Caltech. She is a Computing and Mathematical Sciences PhD student, advised by Pietro Perona. Her interests include leveraging machine learning and computer vision techniques to solve ecological problems.
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discussion

Canopy access or tree climbing resources for arboreal research

Anne Dangerfield

12 September 2024 8:51pm

Hi everyone.I am a professional tree climbing/canopy access trainer and work in conservation tech. I've climbed or trained climbers in several countries to deploy arboreal...

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John Simeone

4 October 2024 10:04pm

Hi all! Folks may be interested in the Cornell Tree Climbing program that is a part of Cornell Outdoor Education. Not only does Cornell offer training, and have a bunch of online resources, but they have also facilitated groups of scientists to collect canopy samples and data. 

Anne Dangerfield

9 January 2025 10:50pm

Hi Dominique,

Thanks for your responses and congratulations on getting trained! 

I can see that speaking directly with a climbing professional could be the most beneficial because what climbing methods and equipment you may need will depend very much on individual project goals and budgets. Did you end up speaking with your trainers about your field research goals and what climbing methods may be best for you? 

Anne Dangerfield

9 January 2025 11:27pm

Hi Mark, thanks for responding. I think you've identified one of the most difficult parts of research climbing: maintaining your climbing skills and knowledge between field sessions. 

My husband is an experienced arborist and practices his skills almost daily. I am not an arborist, so I schedule climbing time to keep my abilities fresh and my husband is there to assist. But I know it's difficult for individual researchers to practice on their own and they should only be climbing alone if experienced and not in a remote area.

However, it's possible to train researchers to safely climb in the field for multiple field sessions. My husband and I trained a group of climbers in Cameroon in January, 2024. The goal was to train four climbers who would go into the remote rainforest for several weeks and set up camera traps. They would deploy and retrieve arboreal cameras at different survey locations over two years. We needed to train the teams to operate safely and independently (without an instructor present) in very remote areas. 

To train them sufficiently, my husband and I spent 1 month in Cameroon with the field team. We did a few days of basic training at a location near the city and then went with them on their initial camera deployment where we continued field training for 2.5 - 3 weeks. Before going to Cameroon, we had several discussions to determine what climbing method and equipment would best meet their data collection goals and were appropriate for their field site and conditions. We taught them basic rescue scenarios. We also set a climbing practice schedule for the team to maintain their climbing and rescue skills. We strongly emphasized to their management that the field team needed access to the climbing gear and needed to follow the practice schedule. Since the training, the team successfully finished two other camera trap surveys and is planning their third.

This was a lot of up-front training and cost. However, these climbers are now operating on their own and can continue operating for the foreseeable future. I think a big reason is receiving extensive training, tailored to their needs. General tree-climbing courses are great for learning the basics, but they'll never be a substitute for in-field, tailored training.

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article

Susan and Conservation outreaches

Susan Chege Reuben

16 December 2024 5:54am

In 2023, I was awarded a seed grant by Arm after my participation in Women in Conservation Technology program (WiCt), organized by WildLabs Net. Fauna & Flora International and GrumetFund. Sooner after, I used the...

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discussion

conservation education assessment

RAZA MUHAMMAD

27 November 2024 7:38am

Hello all, Please guide me on how to assess conservation education. I have filled out pre and post-questionnaires randomly. 

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Paul Allin

2 December 2024 8:20am

assessing any intervention depends on your objectives. So I would recommend that you have a good look at these and try to examine how your conservation education can be linked to that. That should then form the basis of your evaluation. Ideally you would compare it to a group of similar students who did not get the education to measure the change.

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discussion

Question about black coral and octocorallia identification

Muhammad Danie Al Malik

25 November 2024 2:19pm

Hi colleagues,  I am working on a project about black coral and octocorallia assessment. Do you have any information or references on how to differentiate them when they...

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Chris Yesson

28 November 2024 6:31am

Hi Muhammad,

The best reference I know of covering shallow soft corals around Indonesia is Fabricius & Alderslade, its not a complete guide to everything you might see there, but the best thats currently available.

Note that you can only reliably ID octocorals from the sclerites and these need examination under a microscope, which require destructive sampling of a small amount of tissue, but these are intact in dried specimens.

Hope that helps

 

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discussion

Who gave you your last research travel grant? | ¿Quién le concedió su última beca de viaje de investigación? | Quem lhe concedeu sua última bolsa de viagem de pesquisa?

Frank van der Most

16 October 2024 6:21pm

Someone asked me how their NGO based in Africa could fund visiting scholars who come to their NGO. The NGO runs a biological station for research, wildlife conservation, local...

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Brandon Hays

18 October 2024 7:19pm

That is challenging and I'd be keen to hear other people's suggestions! 

From the academic realm, I'll say that many graduate students get travel funding through scientific societies. E.g. the Association for Tropical Biology and Conservation has seed grants:

https://tropicalbiology.org/grants-awards/atbc-seed-research-grant/

And Society for Conservation Biology has grad student awards:
https://conbio.org/mini-sites/scb-awards/student-awards

These are often restricted to members unfortunately. National/regional societies might be good resources for people to look into. 

Frank van der Most

4 November 2024 1:49pm

Oops, sorry about that. I wrote a reply a few weeks ago, and I am pretty sure I clicked the button, but apparently something went wrong. So, another attempt

Thank you for your answer, @brandon. I had overlooked  the scientific societies. 

Membership may be an issue, but I noticed that the ATBC has diversified fees depending on career stage and the member country's economic development, and the SCB membership fee depends on income.

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event

Grant Management and Fundraising Workshop

Indepth Research Institute

25 October 2024 12:32pm

This course is designed to provide participants with the knowledge and skills necessary to effectively manage grants and implement successful fundraising strategies. Participants will learn about the entire lifecycle of...

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event

Seminar Series About Underwater Sounds!

Audrey Looby

21 October 2024 5:34pm

FishSounds Educate is excited to present an 8-part online seminar series all about underwater sounds and their study, targeted at a broad audience of bioacousticians and acoustics-curious folks alike! See the event...

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Audrey Looby

1 December 2024 10:55pm

We will have our next seminar on Friday Dec. 6 at 9 am Pacific—all about freshwater soundscapes with Dr. Jack Greenhalgh!...
Audrey Looby

6 January 2025 8:35pm

The FishSounds Educate seminar series resumes Jan 10 at 9 am Pacific—this time with a break in format! We'll be hosting a discussion about a community-led special issue on...
Audrey Looby

21 January 2025 6:06pm

We will have our next FishSounds Educate seminar on Friday Jan 24 at 9 am Pacific—all about underwater invertebrate sounds with Dr. Ashlee Lillis!...
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discussion

WILDLABS AWARDS 2024 - Fostering bat conservation and citizen science in Zimbabwe: Establishing bat groups and training individuals to use bat detectors

Abigail Karimanzira

4 April 2024 12:12pm

Through our project, awarded by the WILDLABS Awards 2024, we aim to establish three bat groups across Zimbabwe. These groups will be trained to use Echo Meter Touch 2 Pro bat...

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Abigail Karimanzira

9 September 2024 2:28pm

Hi everyone

Our project on fostering bat conservation and citizen science in Zimbabwe has reached another level. To date, the project team has established two bat groups in Bulawayo and Chimanimani. Forty-three people from these two provinces have been educated on bat biology and trained in the use of bat detectors. The trainees appreciated the importance of bats in the environment, and that their conservation is essential.

Due to limited resources, the training sessions were not sufficient for the trainees, as the Kaleidoscope software for analyzing data is somewhat complex. A similar training workshop will be conducted in Harare.

Next steps of project:

Continue training bat group participants on using bat detectors and analyzing acoustic data;
Reach out to other areas and establish bat groups across the country;
Promote and research important habitats for bats in Zimbabwe.
We continue to express our gratitude to @wildlabs  for funding the project. The team: @Ronnie @Ropafadzo @Karen

Phil Atkin

1 October 2024 8:17pm

I would love to see my bat detector designs in use in Africa - drop me a line, let's see if we can get something to happen - I'm pipistrelledetector at gmail dot com

http://www.pippyg.com

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discussion

Building a biodiversity startup focused on getting landowners to use native plants

Colleen

23 September 2024 3:37pm

I'm fresh off my MEM/MBA degrees building a startup called EarthScape that is focused on assisting landowners in the switch from turf grass lawns (the largest USA irrigated...

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discussion

Conservation tech in Human Wildlife Conflict

Angelamercy Baltazary

12 September 2024 1:50pm

I am looking   for effective and low cost   conservation tech as a tool for Human Wildlife conflict mitigation. Anyperson with an idea kindly help.

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Brett Muir

25 September 2024 4:56am

Odor based methods would be interesting. Provided they didn't need to be replenished too often.

We find varied stimulus prevents habituation.

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discussion

Looking to understand SMART 

Loveness L Mutungi

31 July 2024 7:06pm

Hi all, i am looking for your help in understanding how SMART is used in combating poaching and enhance law effectiveness within conservation areas and management zones. Thank you.

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Richard Bergl

9 August 2024 1:30pm

In addition to the suggestions already listed, I'd recommend engaging with the SMART Community Forum:

 

There are also many peer reviewed papers on the topic, for example:

Read "Conservation Technology - Google Books" on Google Books

Conservation Technology - Google Books

The global loss of biodiversity is occurring at an unprecedented pace. Despite the considerable effort devoted to conservation science and management, we still lack even the most basic data on the distribution and density of the majority of plant and animal species, which in turn hampers our efforts to study changes over time. In addition, we often lack behavioural data from the very animals most influenced by environmental changes; this is largely due to the financial and logistical limitations associated with gathering scientific data on species that are cryptic, widely distributed, range over large areas, or negatively influenced by human presence. To overcome these limitations, conservationists are increasingly employing technology to facilitate such data collection. Innovative solutions have been driven by dramatic advances in the conservation-technology interface. The use of camera traps, acoustic sensors, satellite data, drones, and computer algorithms to analyse the large datasets collected are all becoming increasingly widespread. Although specialist books are available on some of these individual technologies, this is the first comprehensive text to describe the breadth of available technology for conservation and to evaluate its varied applications, bringing together a team of international experts using a diverse range of approaches. Conservation Technology is suitable for graduate level students, professional researchers, practitioners and field managers in the fields of ecology and conservation biology.

Google Books

 

http://www.primate-sg.org/storage/pdf/VJP_3_4_pp59-68.pdf

Read "Willingness to Adopt the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART): The Case of Ugalla Game Reserve, Tanzania. | EBSCOhost" on

Willingness to Adopt the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART): The Case of Ugalla Game Reserve, Tanzania. | EBSCOhost

Discover this 2021 paper in Journal of Education, Humanities & Sciences (JEHS) by Magige, Flora John; Nahonyo, Cuthbert L.; Wilfred, Paulo; et. al. focusing on: TANZANIA; PROTECTED areas; EMPLOYEE training; HUMAN resources departments; LAW enforcement; GAMES

Read "Asia-Pacific Forest Sector Outlook: Innovative forestry for a sustainable ... - Pingault, N., Roshetko, J.M., Meybeck, A. (eds.) - Google Books" on Google Books

Asia-Pacific Forest Sector Outlook: Innovative forestry for a sustainable ... - Pingault, N., Roshetko, J.M., Meybeck, A. (eds.) - Google Books

Young students and people, formally or informally engaged in the forest sector, will be the guardians and managers of tomorrow’s forests. Technology savvy, the youth can play an instrumental role in the uptake and scaling-up of innovative technologies (whether digital technologies, biological technologies, technical innovations on processes and products, or innovative finance and social innovations), able to advance sustainable development in the forest sector in the region. Young people can bring in the innovation debate forward-looking perspectives and out-of-the-box thinking. This is why FAO and CIFOR/FTA decided to strengthen their voice in the debate, relaying their experiences and propositions for sustainable innovation in the forest sector. This FAO and CIFOR co-publication gathers 13 youth contributions, carefully selected. These contributions illustrate, in various contexts, the potential of innovative technologies to advance sustainable forestry and sustainable forest management in the Asia-Pacific region.

Google Books
Arky

26 August 2024 10:42am

Have you looked at some of the case studies published on SMART website. Also SMART webinars on Youtube could also interesting to understand the software. 

 

Also recommend looking at  SMART alternative  EarthRanger which is far more simpler than SMART.

 

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discussion

Technology for Counter Wildlife Crime experts for course

Isabel Vique

4 September 2024 10:25am

Dear community,I am working on a Counter Wildlife Crime course for Law Enforcement Officers in the Eastern Caribbean with the University of Northumbria and a number of...

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Richard Bergl

6 September 2024 12:21pm

Re:Wild and some of their partners have set up SMART (www.smartconservationtools.org) at several locations in the Caribbean, e.g.,

and WCS has successfully implemented SMART-based conservation programs in both terrestrial and Marine PAs in Belize:

If you are interested in specific contact people for either of these, send me a direct message.

Rich

 

 

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