As recipients of the WILDLABS AWARDS, our team is proud to lead the Locally-led East Asian Flyway Acoustics (LEAFA) Program—a regional initiative using passive acoustic monitoring and machine learning to track migratory birds across the East Asian-Australasian Flyway. By combining cutting-edge technology with community-driven conservation, we aim to fill critical data gaps, empower local researchers, and contribute to the global conservation technology community through open data sharing and collaborative innovation.

By empowering local researchers and conservationists through training, equipment, and collaborative research, LEAFA not only enhances biodiversity monitoring but also fosters long-term, locally led conservation. The project’s open data-sharing practices and contributions to improving automated detection tools aim to benefit the broader conservation technology community across Southeast Asia and beyond.