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This group is for anyone interested in applying software to conservation and wildlife research. Whether you're a developer eager to contribute to conservation or a newbie with valuable data and ideas but limited software experience, this group connects people with diverse expertise. It provides a space for asking questions, sharing resources, and staying informed about new technologies and best practices.

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Service Designer

Love design, passionate about conversation? Want to make sure that  technologies that are being developed actually meet the needs of the people who use them? Come and work for us! 

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Hello there

Hi everyone, I'm new here! I'm a UX designer and researcher, and an animal lover. Excited to be part of Conservation Tech here at WildLabs! Feel free to reach out to me for...

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ICT Assistant

FFI is seeking an ICT Assistant to help provide ICT support to our employees around the world, providing a first line support service, liaising with external providers and processing relevant administration.

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Join the Black Mammalogists Week Hackathon!

WILDLABS Team
On May 3rd, join the Black Mammalogists Week Team for their virtual Hackathon highlighting three conservation tech areas of interest. All skills and levels of expertise are welcome! Want to get involved? Fill out this...

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Looking for - Intelligence Database Software

I work for an anti-poaching organization (https://rhino-force.org/) with a reasonably successful intelligence arm that makes around ~70 wildlife-related arrests each year. We are...

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Hi Dexter,

In case you have not found your solution yet: I don't know of an off the shelf solution for what you need, but it seems to me that any more or less developed relational database software can do the core of what you are looking for.

You'll need to develop the database application to model (perhaps people from Hemmersbach can help with that) and store what data you want to capture about suspects, incidents, firearms and what have you.

Export to XL should be a no-brainer .

Entity-relationship visualization (I think you mean networks of suspects, firearms, etc.) is not easy for such softwares, but exporting the data and then importing to a network visualizer (GEPHI perhaps) should be possible.

For temporal and spatial data you would do something similar. Don't let the database software do it (unless it has a plugin or extension for it) but export to Geographical Information System software. I can not suggest any, but there must be plenty of that around, probably even open source/freeware.

If you insist on having it all integrated, then that is probably possible, but you'll have to pay a developer for it.

Hopefully this helps

Frank

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Opportunity: Coding 4 Conservation

Apply now for Coding 4 Conservation's year-long mentorship program in R-based data analysis and communication for Malagasy students. Apply here by Friday, April 1, 2022 at 11:59 pm East Africa Time (GMT+3).

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Use of apps to monitor wildlife trade

Hi everyone, I'm wondering if anyone knows of mobile or computer applications which have been designed for use in wildlife marketplaces? So far I can find:...

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Not designed specifically for wildlife marketplaces, but SMART Collect can be used for citizen science and community reporting projects.

DeerLab.com's trail camera software was built to manage and analyze photos. It's a cloud-based web application that has a number of features, from photo recognition to manual tagging of any animal. While geared toward hunters, it's also used for camera trap studies. 

Biologists without Borders has developed a free mobile app (i of the Elephant) that lets the public report where ivory is being sold.  We send our reports of ivory being offered for sale to US Fish and Wildlife, State wildlife agents, National Whistleblowers Center, and the Department of Homeland Security for investigation and prosecution. So far, our intel has led to six successful prosecutions in the US.  It can be used anywhere in the world. 

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Tools for conservation management

Good day all,  I want to find out the tools that are available for conservation management. The tools should ideally be user friendly, especially for the game guards...

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I replied to one of your other posts with this so apologies if you're seeing it twice, but have you tried Vulcan's EarthRanger? That's the only thing I can think of that hasn't already been mentioned (SMART, CyberTracker, etc.).

I just thought of something else that might be an option - Miradi Share (https://www.miradishare.org/ux/home). 

Kobocollect could be adapted to and easy to use: https://www.kobotoolbox.org/

 

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Technology for illiterate community game guards

Good day,  What are the available wildlife monitoring technologies that are appropriate for illiterate game guards/rangers? 

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I wanted to share this wonderful website I just came across from the Earth Defenders Toolkit that lists a bunch of apps and software/platforms that are used for data collection, analysis, sharing & by many Indigenous groups. Some of them specifically are aimed towards illiterate users. 

Link - https://earthdefenderstoolkit.com/toolfinder 

They also link to the platforms they're referencing so you can learn more about them. I hadn't heard of many of them, but they seem really useful! Cadasta, Mapbox, Field Papers, OpenDroneMap, Sapelli, etc etc

Thanks for posting Carlybatist - very interesting link.

A couple of our WildTrack users have asked about the possibility of collecting our footprint data through the SMART app. Does anyone know a developer connected with SMART who might be able to help us discuss this possibility? Thank you!

Zoe

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Low-cost app and web site development for NGOs

A new NGO started in the USA during the pandemic called Develop for Good. It brings together volunteer designers, developers and project managers who are currently in school...

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The depth of institutional support they have put together is impressive. I'm forwarding them to a student dev I know and will definitely keep them in mind to recommend to NGOs. Thanks for posting this!

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WILDLABS Tech Tutors: Season 3

WILDLABS Team
The WILDLABS Tech Tutors are back for all new season of in-depth walkthroughs, deep discussions on effective, impactful, and inclusive conservation technology project strategies, and - of course- even more answers to...

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Ecognize: A platform for environmental and conservation issue reporting

Hello everyone, inspired by platforms like WildALERT in the Philippines and the eJustice app in Sri Lanka, I developed the beta version of Ecognize over the last couple of...

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Great initiative. Very detailed and many features. Wondering how nothing like this exists yet.  One thing I'm thinking of is privacy. For many folks on the front line that I know (many of which indigenous persons) posting anyting that would be traceable to them in any way would be a real risk. I probably didn't read carefully enough sorry.

Theun Amsterdam

I definitely think it's a great idea! I think some of the reasons there are country-by-country versions of initiatives like this are because of country-specific laws, regulations, privacy restrictions, level of enforcement, etc. There is also the issue of multi-national organizations such as WWF, WCS, FFI, etc. who may be working in some areas alongside local, community-led initiatives. You'd just want to be careful that there was equitable distribution of reports. On that note, internet access and smartphones may not be available in many places globally. I work in Madagascar and this would definitely be a problem. Perhaps allowing some sort of retroactive reporting, so someone who saw something but didn't have internet could at least report it the following week when they are back at a research station or town, for example. 

I would worry too about the users reporting illegal activity and what specific security protections are in place to ensure any personally-identifiable information cannot be leaked. It might be worth thinking about how those engaging in the illegal activities themselves may try to weaponize an app like this, e.g., a large-scale mining operation reporting individuals from the community for cutting down trees (the scale of one versus the other is very different, but company-backed illegal activity will have more resources than an indigenous tribe, for example). Given how corrupt officials in different goverment agencies help perpetuate shady business dealings, there could be targeted or inequitable enforcement based on reports like this. 

I would recommend reaching out to folks specifically embedded in this space, such as the people at TRAFFIC, TRACE (wildlife forensics), etc. The folks at SMART will likely have good ideas, and already have some of the functionality you're describing (albeit focused on rangers and park officials rather than the general public at large).

Hi writer (I didn't get your name ;-),

if you like we can talk for 30min or so to review your solution. There are a number of them out there, including our Cluey Data Collector & Tracking app.

The main things that we wanted to solve was:

  • ease to start a project (without requiring the user to understand things like data-models etc.)
  • seamless integration with other data sources and (realtime) analytical functions to help rangers optimize patrols etc.
  • ease to share observations
  • ease to combine/aggregate project 

Would be great to share some ideas and see if we can help each other,

Best,

Jan Kees 

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Software/Programme for counting objects in a photo

Hi everyone, I am running a timelapse camera which takes one photo every 10 minutes of a harbour landscape. I'll be running the camera for months to years and I'm looking...

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Hi Wilson, Similar product we are creating at https://aivi.in . We are focused on audio, image, vedio based intelligent and based out of Bangalore,India. Currently implementing this solution( Computer vision, IoT , Cloud , Intelligent) for one of santuary in India to detect poachers and animals

Attaching idea snap that we are implementing. Intellgence Dashboard provides all related details ( Count etc.)  This is just driven by IoT enabled camera and Mobile App for plug and play solution

 

I'd highly suggest going with a pre-built service like AWS Rekognition or Google Vision, as their models are already trained with more images that you could possible do yourself.

hi Louise, I don't know if you are still looking, but we've just become second (5 digits behind the comma ;-) at the iWildcam2021 Kaggle competition. We're currently building a full-circle solution to:

  • identify objects, people and animals on images
  • determine whether they form a time sequence (several images in a row showing the same animal that passes by)
  • count the number of object/animals seen in that sequence
  • place classifications that do not pass a user-defined threshhold in a queue
  • provide an interface to manually classify these images
  • and pass back the results to a client. This could be an API, or our any of the analytical tools in out WITS platform

If you are interested in a call, you can reach me at hello@sensingclues.org,

Best regards!
Jan Kees

 

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Webinar: Can we redesign conservation funding?

Internet of Elephants
Join the Luc Hoffmann Institute and Internet of Elephants for a panel discussion delving into how we might use wildlife data to revolutionise funding for conservation.
 Register now to attend this webinar on June 29th...

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