Bridging the Gap: Technology can help conserve biodiversity

"The first step is to knit together the various monitoring systems in order to provide a clear picture of what is going on and what needs to be done. The siloed nature of ecological science, in which teams focus on a particular animal, plant or ecological niche, has created a patchwork of initiatives and data rather than a comprehensive, global approach. At the moment it is not even possible to draw up an accurate summary of the number, location and type of different sensors around the world, let alone the species they are monitoring. Wildlife Insights, an online global repository for camera traps, has logged thousands of cameras, but is constantly discovering more. One country recently informed it that it had another 1,000 sensors that had not yet been logged, for example. A survey due to be published later this year by WILDLABS, a network of conservation-technology users, found that financing, co-ordination and capacity-building are critical to the development and adoption of conservation technology."

- The Economist Technology Quarterly, Bridging the Gap: Technology can help conserve biodiversity

Read this full article here.

You can also find the following articles on biodiversity and conservation technology in this special issue of Technology Quarterly:

The other environmental emergency: Loss of biodiversity poses as great a risk to humanity as climate change 

Sensors and Sensibility: All kinds of new technology are being used to monitor the natural world

Cracking the code: The sequencing of genetic material is a powerful conservation tool

Crowdsourced science: How volunteer observers can help protect biodiversity

Simulating everything: Compared with climate, modelling of ecosystems is at an early stage

Back from the dead: Reviving extinct species may soon be possible