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WILDLABS logoWildlabs.net : The conservation technology network

Group

Geospatial / Feed

Geospatial data and analysis are critical for conservation, from planning to implementation and measuring success. The Geospatial group focuses on all aspects of this field, from field surveys to remote sensing and data development/analysis to GIS systems. The ability to visualize and analyze spatial data underpins many areas of conservation, this group may serve as a landing point and gateway for those new to conservation technology. 

Group curators

discussion

WOOHOO ITS WORKING!! Tech finds undetected decades old Alien Invasive Parent Plants in indigenous forest!

Sean Hill

24 July 2025 12:21pm

Great news everyone!! In November 2024 GeoWing Academy scanned 239 hectares of forested valleys using an off-the-shelf DJI Phantom 4 drone. The resulting...

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Julia

5 May 2026 11:02pm

This is a very promising result. The use of drones for detecting invasive species demonstrates strong potential for improving monitoring efficiency and accuracy. In a country like Brazil, where ecosystems are significantly affected by invasive species such as Hovenia dulcis (Japanese raisin tree) and Pinus spp., this technology could become a valuable tool for early detection and management.

Sean Hill

29 May 2026 10:15am

It certainly is! The great thing about it too is that the aerial detections often lead to more ground detections when teams are locating the trees from the map data and by using the ground app, they are able to mark the locations and photograph the newly discovered aliens and sync it to the existing maps as well. This allows for truly comprehensive removal and monitoring data capture.

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discussion

Nature Tech Unconference - Anyone attending?

Elsa

8 March 2025 12:11pm

Hi all, anyone planning to attend the Nature Tech Unconference on 28th March at the London School of Economics Campus in London, UK? (the event is free to attend but...

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Elsa

13 May 2026 12:05pm

Myself and the Fauna & Flora Conservation Technology team will be there (@Chelsea_Smith  and @ugyenpenjor ) and also the WILDLABS team @HRees ! See you!

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careers

Ecological Data Scientist

Lacey Hughey

21 April 2026 9:22pm

The Smithsonian Institution is the world’s largest museum, education, and research complex, with 21 museums and the National Zoo. This position is located in the Smithsonian's National Zoo and Conservation Biology...

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discussion

Looking To Connect: Game Developer to Conservation Tech (Built Animal Movement App)

Kristof Klipfel

3 December 2025 1:10am

Hi everyone! My name is Kristof.I'm a game technology developer transitioning into conservation tech, and I'm so excited to have discovered this community - I honestly had no idea...

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Brandon Hays

29 December 2025 8:38pm

Hi Kristof,

 

 Very cool that you made your own app like this! I'm not a movement ecologist, but I'd generally say this sort of thing will be more nice to look at than solves research questions. For example, most statistical models will show that proximity to water and human development are the strongest predictors of elephant movement. But it's still a very cool tool for outreach and communication with the general public or conservation decision makers! 

I can imagine a visualization like this being very helpful in communicating drivers of human-elephant conflict in SE Asia, where elephant movements outside of protected areas may be explained by the combination of attractive food crops, accessible water and shade refuge in tree plantations, and repulsive hazing by farmers. These sorts of things that can be modeled statistically don't necessarily translate well to the public - so visualization is really important! 

On a non-geospatial note, I would say that AR/VR also has a lot of potential for increasing public engagement/support for conservation. Getting individuals who may never go to East Africa to experience visually how increasingly severe droughts affects the landscape and promotes conflict between pastoralists and agriculturalists and wildlife could be really powerful. That's perhaps an area where game development expertise would be particularly useful. 

Cheers,

Brandon

Don F. Becker

20 April 2026 4:05am

I am glad to see more programmers coming into the conservation field.  The first big project I did that really got me involved with conservation work, was taking the path finding algorithms I used from learning game programming, and using them to detect and measure the distance of routes that turtles traveled up and down streams in a river drainage.  

Kim Hendrikse

20 April 2026 7:39am

Wolves, cool!

Will this then need collared wolves ?

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discussion

Data storage and Esri integration with Microsoft Azure

Leanne Tough

8 January 2025 10:30am

Hello! I'm wondering whether there's anyone on here who would be able to offer me some guidance on storing spatial data in Microsoft Azure, and how to integrate Esri products with...

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Mike Palko

13 March 2026 3:19pm

I'm interested in chatting about this if you are still looking.

Theresa Stratmann

24 March 2026 7:58am

Hi Leanne. 

As you mentioned, ArcGIS Pro is not meant to work with cloud storage solutions (

). Although you now can connect to raster and parquet files (

https://www.esri.com/arcgis-blog/products/arcgis-pro/data-management/connecting-to-cloud-storage-in-arcgis-pro-a-step-by-step-guide

).  That is why we use ArcGIS Online to share geospatial data within our organization. You can get discounts for NGOs. Check in with your local ESRI organization (ESRI UK?), they also sometimes host events to help NGOs. While we also have access to Azure and Fabric, this does not seem the best place to store and access spatial data. Rather we push data to Fabric from ArcGIS Online as needed to incorporate into other datasets. 

 

Theresa

Mike Palko

8 April 2026 12:36pm

Interesting.  If you need help with any of this and can utilize my skillset, let me know.

Thanks, Mike

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discussion

Reproducible Builds in Software Development

Manish Gadhvi

8 September 2025 8:47pm

Hi Wildlabs — quick question for the community: how important is reproducibility in your day-to-day conservation tech work?A few prompts to help:How important is...

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Manish Gadhvi

3 April 2026 2:46pm

Hi Stephen,

My experience of Nix is limited unfortunately but I think it offers a lot of the same benefits. I'm an Emacs/Lisp fan so it's perfect for me :)

There is Cuirass, which is a Guix specific CI and build automation service and a pack command to create containers. It's nice to have everything linked with Guix rather than different systems/frameworks

I built a small POC to explain the benefits. 

Stephen Leard

3 April 2026 6:39pm

Makes sense, I thought there might be a Lisp preference factoring in there 🙂

Cuirass looks cool, I'm going to check it out, and the eco-pulse-monitor project looks great too, well done!

Related to AI sustainability, have you checked out any of the CodeCarbon tools by chance? I've been working on incorporating their library into our daily code tasks at work, seems like a worthwhile project - 

EcoLogits just joined CodeCarbon too I think, also neat - 

Thanks!

Manish Gadhvi

5 April 2026 10:10pm

Thank you. That looks great! I was trying to build something similar but, as usual, there's a Python library already :) I was leaning towards trying SLMs like llama.cpp

 

My end goal is to find ways to use this approach in animal conservation specifically. I'm looking at data sets from the IUCN to see what's possible. I'd love to hear more about your work

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Link

Closing the Information Gap: Earth Observation puts evidence in the hands of Kenya’s conservancy managers

Elsa

4 April 2026 5:34pm

In Kenya’s arid and semi-arid north, where livelihoods depend on healthy rangelands and reliable water, conservation managers need reliable data. The Isiolo County Conservancies Association (ICCA) is putting Earth observation analytics to work to close the information gap and...

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Link

Coastal carbon and fishery assessment in Madagascar and Comoros Satellites supporting coastal resilience in Madagascar

Elsa

4 April 2026 5:17pm

Ecosystems are under pressure from environmental change and human activity, while data to support decision-making remains limited. An initiative supported by the Global Development Assistance demonstrated how satellite Earth observation provides insights for coastal management.

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discussion

SCB Drones and Data Working Group (Society for Conservation Biology)

David Guerin

3 January 2026 5:30am

I’m pleased to share that the Society for Conservation Biology (SCB) has officially approved the new Drones and Data Working Group (D&D WG) for provisional status: https://...

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Akiba

3 January 2026 9:40pm

Congratulations David. Looking forward to attending the inaugural meeting :)

Akiba

David Guerin

23 March 2026 12:37pm

Quick update – our next SCB Drones & Data Working Group coordination meeting is 24 March 2026.

Two identical sessions to accommodate time zones:
EARLY: 07:00 UK / 08:00 CET / 15:00 HKT / 16:00 Tokyo / 17:00 Brisbane / 18:00 Sydney / 20:00 New Zealand  
LATE: 17:00 UK / 18:00 CET / 12:00 US Eastern / 09:00 US Pacific  

If you’re interested in joining the Working Group or haven’t yet completed the Expression of Interest, you can still do so here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScKxh3-e2duORzdqvuD2UCqC-Cpp7booTdWu7zFSHYPV0HOfw/viewform

Please email any questions to me at [email protected]

Agenda:
• Confirming Working Group scope and positioning within SCB 
• Establishing governance and leadership roles 
• Defining priority outputs for the next phase 
• Progressing toward full SCB Working Group status 

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discussion

AI Segmentation Tool for QGIS

Sean Hill

2 March 2026 8:29am

I’ve recently been testing an AI segmentation plugin developed by TerraLab for QGIS, and I have to say — it’s seriously impressive.It’s essentially a one-click segmentation tool...

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Sean Hill

3 March 2026 7:51am

It is a fantastic tool, really helps save time and increases efficiency. Have you used or designed tools like this before?

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