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WILDLABS logoWildlabs.net : The conservation technology network

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East Africa Community / Feed

 The East Africa Community is WILDLABS first regional hub. This group creates a space to foster connections and collaboration between conservation and technology players in the Silicon Savannah.

Group curators

Agripina Cletus
Frankfurt Zoological Society
As a wildlife conservationist, I am deeply committed to nature conservation, community empowerment, and wildlife research in Tanzania. I've actively engaged in community-based projects, passionately advocating for integrating local communities into conservation.
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discussion

Is a physical meet possible this 2025?

CathyNj

20 April 2025 4:28pm

I would like to propose a physical meet up, sip and share conservation tech. How many would be up for it? Kindly comment below. Thanks!

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Carly Batist

21 April 2025 4:56pm

WILDLABS is in the process of organizing a global Conservation Tech Conference - @Adrien_Pajot is leading on that. I think it's meant to be sometime early 2026?

Thomas Gray

5 May 2025 8:32pm

Love the idea!!

Monterey Bay, CA here : ) 

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article

Fires in the Serengeti: Burn Severity & Remote Sensing with Earth Engine

Vance Russell

29 April 2025 6:16pm

Fires in Serengeti and Masai Mara National Parks have burned massive areas this year. With Google Earth Engine, it's possible to quantify burn severity using the normalized burn ratio function, then calculate the total...

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Vance Russell

1 May 2025 11:44am

This was originally presented on 24 April, 2025 as part of a Geospatial Group Cafe. We will post the recording and highlights from other speakers of that session soon!
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discussion

Beekeeping training center/field school

Muganyizi Melchior Kamuganga

3 April 2025 10:38am

Greetings from Tanzania ,Lake zone Tanzania Beekeeping field schoolI am a founder of none for profit organization based in North-western Tanzania. Currently am designing a...

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Travis Butler

8 April 2025 9:17am

Hi, I'm really interested in your project. If you're open to it, I’d be happy to build and send you a couple of data logger units — free of charge — to help monitor temperature, humidity, pressure, and possibly hive weight using a load cell. I’m also considering adding a simple bee traffic sensor to track how often bees enter and leave the hive. This could help reveal patterns related to foraging behavior or colony stress. 

 It would also be an interesting use case for using LoRaWAN to send node data to a central gateway. The data could be exported in line protocol format so you can easily import it into InfluxDB or another dashboarding tool if you'd like to visualize it.

 I’m quite busy with other projects, but I’d be happy to throw something together to get you started, and I’ll include the source code in case you'd like to modify or expand it in the future. Let me know if this sounds helpful — I'd love to support your work.

 Best regards, Travis

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discussion

GPS collars for domestic dogs

Stephanie M.

20 January 2025 3:26am

Hi Everyone - I'm quantifying home ranges and contact rates between wildlife, pastoralists, and domestic animals (livestock guardian dogs and livestock) living on shared...

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Constance Woodman

20 February 2025 8:46pm

What are your parameters? Do you need yes no movement, which could be collected with an accelerometer and no lat-long data?

Movement on an XY grid once an hour within a tightly bounded area?

High resolution once per second data? Large geographic area?

Different technologies deliver ddifferent datasets. Sometimes, significantly!

Fadhilla Golda

10 March 2025 11:37am

Hi Stephanie, at https://Savannahtracking.com we develop and manufacture a variety of collars with sizes ranging from about 95 grams for Raptors, 200grams - 1200g for mammals, and collars for large mammals such as Elephants. We currently have collars deployed on Dingoes which are about the same size as domestic dogs, and I believe that a similar solution will be perfect for your needs.
Our GPS collars can be programmed to collect high resolution data (15-minute gps positions) with hourly uploads via iridium satellite to our server where you can view and download the data from our dedicated windows or MAC SDM platforms. We also have a view only android/ios app. All our collars have two-way satellite communication, Internet based downloading via the free accompanying Savannah Tracking data manager software, automated Google Earth links for visualization, fully user definable geo fencing allowing for point, line and polygon fences and automated app and mail alarms in case of zone violation.

Kindly reach out to us and we can discuss a bespoke solution for your tracking needs at info@savannahtracking.com

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discussion

ACS@1 What has happened?

CathyNj

8 November 2024 5:47pm

I had the opportunity to attend great discussions around youth and children on assessing progress since the Africa Climate Summit. Youth are keen on what actions are in place...

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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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discussion

Traducción de idiomas / Language translation

Wade

2 October 2024 9:27pm

Durante la Hora de la Variedad de esta mañana, el tema de la traducción entre idiomas se discutió con cierta extensión.  Específicamente en el contexto de estos foros y...

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Kim Hendrikse

3 October 2024 6:57am

Me encanta esta grupa. Tengo cinco anos Duolingo 😀

Frank van der Most

3 October 2024 6:59pm

Thanks for writing this all down, @Wade !

During the discussion, I claimed that searching WILDLABS content in a different language is not possible in spite of the translation tools in browsers. Someone ( was it @carlybatist ?) then pointed out that this might work with ChatGPT. I haven't had the chance to test that yet. If it works, then that would be awesome.

----------------------------------- Google translate debajo ----------

¡Gracias por escribir todo esto, @Wade! Durante la discusión, afirmé que no es posible buscar contenido de WILDLABS en un idioma diferente a pesar de las herramientas de traducción de los navegadores. Alguien (¿fue @carlybatist?) señaló que esto podría funcionar con ChatGPT. Todavía no he tenido la oportunidad de probarlo. Si funciona, sería fantástico.

Vanesa Reyes

7 October 2024 3:32pm

Gracias @Wade, por iniciar esta conversación. La traducción en Mac quedó impecable! Nos encantaría seguir escuchando sus experiencias y sugerencias sobre cómo hacer que nuestros foros y eventos sean más accesibles e inclusivos en diferentes idiomas. En cuanto a Chrome, existe una opción similar con la extensión de Google Translate (y también hay una opción parecida en Edge). Si escribo un mensaje, puedo seleccionarlo, hacer clic derecho y elegir "Traducir". Esto abre un pop-up de Google Translate y me permite seleccionar el idioma de destino (aunque está limitado a un número específico de caracteres 😕). Sin embargo, como menciona Frank, el problema con estas soluciones es la limitación para buscar contenido en otros idiomas dentro de la plataforma, ya que la traducción es solo superficial y no afecta la búsqueda de palabras clave en el contenido original. Sería interesante explorar opciones de integración más profundas, como el uso de herramientas de inteligencia artificial que faciliten tanto la traducción como la búsqueda y navegación en varios idiomas.

 --------------------Chat GPT translation below ---------------------------------------- 

Thank you, @Wade, for starting this conversation. The Mac translation worked flawlessly! We would love to continue hearing your experiences and suggestions on how to make our forums and events more accessible and inclusive in different languages. As for Chrome, there’s a similar option using the Google Translate extension (and a comparable option in Edge). If I write a message, I can select it, right-click, and choose "Translate". This opens a Google Translate pop-up and allows me to select the target language (although it is limited to a certain number of characters 😕). However, as Frank mentioned, the issue with these solutions is that they don’t support searching content in other languages within the platform, as the translation is only superficial and doesn’t affect keyword searches in the original content. It would be interesting to explore deeper integration options, such as using AI tools that can facilitate both translation and searching/navigating across multiple languages.

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discussion

GIS Education for Sustainable Development 

CathyNj

17 October 2024 5:01pm

I will be presenting on Use of Cartography in Promoting Education for Sustainable Development at Wildlife Clubs of Kenya this month. Objective: To understand how to use &...

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discussion

Recycled & DIY Remote Monitoring Buoy

Brett Smith

15 January 2024 1:14am

Hello everybody, My name is Brett Smith, and I wanted share an open source remote monitoring buoy we have been working on in Seychelles as part of our company named "...

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tonni

3 October 2024 9:16am

Hi Brett,this ocean lab sychelles is great to hear from you! I love your remote monitoring buoy project, especially the recycling of DFAD buoys and the design of custom-built ones that are full of interesting features. The expandability of the navigation buoys enabling it to be configured as hydrophones, cameras, or water quality monitors is a great feature. The technical marvels, such as recycling DFADs' circuits, making your own hydrophone, and designing a super-efficient system, are terrific. Moreover, it is encouraging to witness the deployment of your early system, particularly the live video and water quality data you have collected. You will definitely make a positive impact on the Wildlabs community with your knowledge of electrical engineering and software development. I care to hear more of your discoveries and any news that you will be sharing. Keep doing what you excel at!

CathyNj

8 October 2024 8:46am

Thank you for sharing! 

chris wilcox

21 October 2024 12:45am

Hi Brett,

 

I am interested in developing really low cost multi channel underwater acoustic recorders.  Can you tell me a bit more about the board and stuff you were using for yours? You can get me at chris@wilcoanalytics.org.

 

Thanks,

 

Chris

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careers

Director of Mpala Secretariat

Alex Rood

16 October 2024 6:34pm

Princeton University seeks an ambitious, highly motivated, and experienced individual for a leadership role in its office of international affairs and operations. Reporting to the Vice Provost for International Affairs...

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article

🌍🎶 **Inspiring Moments at the African Bioacoustics Community Conference!** 🎶🌍

Consolata Gathoni Gitau

18 September 2024 3:27pm

The  African Bioacoustics Conference!

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CathyNj

18 September 2024 5:37pm

This is very exciting! Thank you for sharing.
Grace Mchome

26 September 2024 1:08pm

Exciting! what indicators did you use to track land degradation and restoration using acoustics?
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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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