Wildlife crime is one of the greatest challenges facing conservation, and one of the conservation tech world's biggest areas of innovation. With new ideas and solutions constantly being put forth to track and protect species targeted by poachers, manage protected areas and support rangers, and combat the growing online market for illegal wildlife products, the engineers and conservationists working to solve wildlife crime's many challenges rely on tools like machine learning, biologging, camera traps, acoustic monitoring, drones, mobile apps, and more.
This wide variety of overlapping technology makes our Wildlife Crime group a potential melting pot for many of our other communities, and makes it an especially exciting place to find collaborators working in different tech spheres to meet a common goal. Whether you're a camera trap expert looking for information on thermal vision to spot potential poachers, a machine learning expert with the skills to analyze acoustic data for gunshots, or a protected area manager seeking the latest integrated mobile tools, this group can connect you with the right members of our community!
Below, you'll find WILDLABS resources and conversations to help you understand how different technologies are being put to work in the fight against wildlife crime, and what conservation tech practitioners need for these tools to be effective.
Three Tutorials and Videos for Beginners:
- How do I use AI to fight wildlife crime? | Lily Xu, Tech Tutors
- WWF Wildlife Crime Technology Project | Eric Becker, Virtual Meetups
- SmartParks | Laurens de Groot, Virtual Meetups
Three Forum Threads for Beginners:
- Snare detection technologies | Rachel Kramer
- Tools for conservation management | Chris Muashekele
- Looking for Intelligence Database Software | Dexter Oelrichs
Three Articles for Beginners:
- Using AIS data to investigate the world's fishing ports, Max Schofield
- How do Wildlife Crime Experts view Remote Sensing Technologies used to Combat Illegal Wildlife Crime?, Isla Duporge
- Metal Detecting Sensors for Anti-Poaching, Sam Seccombe
Join this group now to get to know our community and start discussing solutions and ideas together!
Header photo: © Frank af Petersens/Save the Elephants
Mechanical Engineer background in test and measurement, IT maintenance consulting, database development, field installation, field maintenance and systems analysis
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- @Alawa
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Passionate wildlife and biodiversity conservationist
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- @Samunaan
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I am a conservation biologist; my research interests are behavioural ecology, human – wildlife interactions and livelihoods around conservation areas
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- @mattaudette
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Software Tester and Test Automator at Wildlife Protection Solutions
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- @williams
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I am a conservationist specializing in endangered species, particularly vultures. As the Endangered Species Conservation Coordinator/Co-Founder at Biota Conservation Hub Foundation (BiotaCHF), I have conducted extensive research/conservation of vultures and other water birds.
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Wildlife Protection Solutions (WPS)
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I am the Programs Coordinator for Grumeti Fund's Research and Innovation for the Serengeti Ecosystem (RISE)


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20+ years traveler and management consultant turned tech founder and conservationist. Founder & CEO of ZAMBEZI ZERØ; super intelligence to safeguard biodiversity.
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Animal Care Trust
I rescue animals in northern Taiwan. Most of our rescues are dogs or other animals maimed by wire snares and gin traps.
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World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

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With the rising threats to biodiversity such as wildlife crime, climate change and human-wildlife conflict today, wildlife monitoring technologies have become vital to study movement ecology, behaviour patterns, changes...
25 October 2023
Article
There is an illegal mining contract (it's literally against the constitution of Panama!) Being forced upon the people and nature of panama by the Canadian mining company First Quantum and a handful of corrupt...
23 October 2023
The WCS team in Uganda is working with impacted communities, district leaders and wildlife authorities to come up with innovative solutions to Human Wildlife Conflicts and curb wildlife crimes in our time. Check out...
5 September 2023
"Artificial Intelligence could be the solution needed to effectively monitor and safeguard vast landscapes across Africa that, up until now, have been protected solely by patrolling." Read Tusk's latest Medium blog on...
12 July 2023
Panthera’s Counter Wildlife Crime (CWC) program is one of five thematic, cross-regional programs that sit within its Conservation Science (CS) division. This role acts as a ‘force multiplier’ for the global experts,...
31 May 2023
WWF's recent Fuller Seminar Series on Artificial Intelligence and Conservation featured some familiar faces from the WILDLABS community, including our past Tech Tutor Lily Xu! Check out her presentation talking about AI...
26 April 2023
While tech deployment has often been hailed for playing a critical role in the fight against poaching, these technologies bring with them the risk of cyber attacks. This is based on a study conducted by Orange...
26 April 2023
Scholarships available for training courses focussing on nature restoration in East Africa
21 February 2023
Researchers and conservationists are embarking on a bold initiative to save the world's most trafficked wild mammal — the pangolin
16 February 2023
Technology to End the Sixth Mass Extinction. Salary: $104k-144K; Location: Washington DC or Seattle WA, potential hybrid; 5+ years of Full stack development experience; Deadline March 15th - view post for full job...
10 February 2023
This study uses passive acoustic monitoring to record the patterns of illegal cattle occurrence within protected areas in the Brazilian Pantanal.
12 January 2023
Careers
The Senior Conservation Technology Specialist will be responsible for providing technical advice and capacity development to GWP project teams on conservation technology, distilling challenges and lessons from project...
22 September 2022
June 2025
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July 2025
April 2024
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42 Products
1 R&D Projects
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Recently updated products
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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In positive news from China, the National Forestry and Grassland Administration (NFGA) has teamed up with Tencent to combat IWT online... |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 years 5 months ago | |
Hi, I went to this workshop, led by Sonia O'Connor and James Barrett, and I would recommend it. Both Sonia and James have many years of experience... |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 years 6 months ago | |
Upcoming webinar session on Pangolin Trade in China will be delivered TOMORROW at 9 AM BST/ 3 PM ICT by Yifu Wang from the University of... |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 years 8 months ago | |
Interested in learning about conservation criminology? See the attached details on a fall 2018 3-credit graduate-level online course and... |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 years 8 months ago | |
Hi Maike! I used ORA Pro which was developed by Carnegie Mellon University. The 'lite' version is free to use and similar to IBM - http://www.casos.cs.... |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 years 9 months ago | |
Hello, Does anyone have contact information for SMART trainers that would be itnerested in a short term consultancy for the FFI Liberia... |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 years 9 months ago | |
On Wednesday (25th July) the Director of Forensic Services at the City of London Police, Tracy Alexander, will be giving a talk titled... |
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Wildlife Crime | 6 years 9 months ago | |
Due to the magnitude and complexity of the Illegal Wildlife Trade (IWT), conservationists are often only able to fight crises on the ground... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 1 month ago | |
An upcoming event might be of interest to members of this group: Wednesday, March 21, 2018 8:00 - 9:30 am EDT... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 2 months ago | |
Hi @Nafeesa+Esmail - are you already in touch with the TRAFFIC Network about this survey? |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 3 months ago | |
Hey teams, Quick link to the devpost page to submit: https://zoohackathon2017.devpost.com Good luck! Steph |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 7 months ago | |
Poacher alert dataset https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B9qkd5vrU3_fUXJTNk1wM2tpSGs/view?usp=sharing This dataset... |
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Wildlife Crime | 7 years 7 months ago |
WILDLABS Tech Hub: Poreprint
26 March 2020 12:00am
Online Workshop: Conservation Technology

23 March 2020 12:00am
Webinar: IIED Community-Based Approaches to Tackling Poaching and Illegal Wildlife Trade

17 March 2020 12:00am
Reading tips on De-extinction/Regenesis
12 March 2020 4:10pm
Accepting Applications: ArcGIS Solutions for Protected Area Management
4 March 2020 12:00am
Call for Nominations: Tusk Conservation Awards
3 March 2020 12:00am
12 Nov: Tech-crime workshops
4 September 2019 12:08pm
22 November 2019 3:14pm
The ASC conference happens annually, the next one will be in Washington DC over the 18-21 November 2020. Details for the pre-conference workshops are only e-mailed a few months in advance to conference participants. I won't be attending next year, otherwise I would post any opportunities that come up on here. You could e-mail the organiser (Susan Case; asc@asc41.com) next September 2020 to see if there are any tech-related workshops planned.
Lion Relocation Projects
17 October 2019 11:13am
Instant Detect 2.0 emerges
3 September 2019 12:00am
16 November 2023 1:11am
Which NGOs are keeping detailed track of the forest-product supply chain?
11 July 2019 8:21pm
22 August 2019 5:06pm
Hi Liev,
I'm not an expert on this stuff, but from the sound of it, your answer will depend on what you're looking to focus on.
By 'illegal', do you mean 'obtained a contract through corrupt means', 'failing to adhere to an existing contract in terms of engagement with a community' or 'linked to human rights allegations in terms of treating workers'?
By 'unsustainable', do you mean 'responsible for polluting the local area', 'involved in activities like palm oil production that might be globally unsustainable', or 'failing to provide employment opportunities to local residents'?
Or is the answer 'all of the above'?
I've added a few tools below that I've come across, all of which have a lot of information about various aspects of the questions you mentioned. Hope it helps!
- https://ejatlas.org/
- https://landmatrix.org/
- https://resourcecontracts.org/ and https://resourceprojects.org/
- https://openlandcontracts.org/
- https://opendevelopmentmekong.net/search/data/
- https://rspo.org/certification/search-for-certified-growers
- https://open.sourcemap.com/
ESA Kickstarter: Environmental Crimes
22 August 2019 12:00am
Tech In the Wild: Where technology meets conservation

22 August 2019 12:00am
Virtual Meetup Special Discussion: Scaling technology solutions to tackle the illegal wildlife trade
6 June 2019 3:28pm
Technology companies, FCO, and conservation NGOs come together to scale technology solutions to end wildlife crime
4 June 2019 12:00am
AI for Earth Innovation Grant (extended)
4 June 2019 12:00am
Caught in the crossfire – Tapirs in tiger territory
31 May 2019 12:00am
Technology lab focused on wildlife protection opens on Ol Pejeta Conservancy
31 May 2019 12:00am
How machine learning can help fight illegal wildlife trade on social media
31 May 2019 12:00am
GWP Webinar Recording: Using SMART at scale for effective wildlife protection
21 May 2019 12:00am
WILDLABS TECH HUB Showcase

17 May 2019 12:00am
Meet the WILDLABS TECH HUB Winners
13 May 2019 12:00am
Huge appetite for data trusts, according to new ODI research
15 April 2019 12:00am
Tech Hub open call: Tech to end wildlife crime
7 February 2019 2:53pm
11 February 2019 9:30am
Hello Nik
I am still very much learning about startups and building a business but the bottom line is: whatever your product or service, there need to be customers for it who are happy to pay the price you ask for. This is one of the details you have to think about thoroughly when writing a business plan. This in turn forces you to really understand your customer and their particular needs so that you can make sure your product or service is meeting these - not just your own ideas of what a great product should look like.
It does not matter whether you are selling to the public, private or third sector, whether it is a luxury item or something to "improve the public good". Your product/service needs to be affordable by the user and do the job they require it to do. The business plan forces you to work out these details.
To many engineers like myself this kind of work compares poorly to working on the tech side of a soution. But it is a VERY useful exercise and it can actually be fun once you get into it. Having said that, the infamous business plan is also often a document that is created at great effort for someone else (like a funding provider) and then filed, forgotten and never updated. A wasted effort really.
To get started try something much more visual like drawing up a 'Business Model Canvas' and 'Value Proposition Canvas' (see https://www.strategyzer.com/ ). Consider it a precursor to the business plan and "something you can pin on your office wall" to keep it updated more easily. There are plenty of useful short tutorials on the above website (just need to register for free) to explain the concept. It is making a lot of sense and I found it very useful in getting the business basics sorted out.
Good luck,
Joachim
11 February 2019 7:27pm
Hello Joe
Fine, I will apply as you suggested and see what happens.
Joachim
15 February 2019 12:48pm
Thanks for the wonderful answer to Nik's query, Joachim! I think you covered everything, but to put a cap on it: for our good to make a long term impact, it has to survive the long term. That means we'll have to have a plan for long-term sustainability. That doesn't necessarily mean selling expensive licenses, but it does mean knowing your costs, and having an idea of how you'll offset them. Hence a business plan.
Nominations for the 2019 Tusk Conservation Awards Now Open
12 February 2019 12:00am
TECH HUB Open Call: Tech to end wildlife crime
7 February 2019 12:00am
ChimpFace: Facial recognition to combat wildlife trafficking
6 February 2019 12:00am
UK’s first data trusts to tackle illegal wildlife trade and food waste
31 January 2019 12:00am
FLIR and World Wildlife Fund Announce Effort to Combat Rhino Poaching in Kenya
18 January 2019 12:00am
News from around the world
21 December 2018 9:28am
WILDLABS Virtual Meetup: Big Data in Conservation

27 November 2018 12:00am
19 November 2019 1:05pm
Hi - how can I find out about future meetups please?