About the Series

Welcome to the third season of WILDLABS Tech Tutors, the series that answers the "how do I do that?" questions of conservation tech! Brought to you with the support of Microsoft AI for Earth, Tech Tutors is made for conservation tech beginners of all knowledge levels (and yes, even experts can still be beginners when it comes to tackling a new aspect of conservation tech or starting a new project.). Our Tech Tutors will give you the bite-sized, easy-to-understand building blocks you'll need to try new conservation technology, enhance your research, DIY a project for the first time, or simply explore the possibilities.

Taking place every Thursday, each Tech Tutor will present a 30 minute tutorial guiding you through an aspect of conservation tech, followed by a 30 minute live Q&A session with the audience.

What do you gain as a Tech Tutors participant? You'll leave each episode with the confidence to build on the skills discussed in these tutorials, and you'll have an ongoing opportunity to learn and collaborate with other members of the WILDLABS community! The connections made through the past seasons of Tech Tutors have led to real projects and results, and our third season is set to introduce you to even more new ideas and community members who are ready to start something new! 

Can't make it to an episode this season? Don't worry! You can find every tutorial after it airs on our Youtube channel, and you can collaborate and ask questions in each episode's thread on the WILDLABS Tech Tutors forum.

Want to catch up on Tech Tutors Seasons One and Two? Find links to our episodes' recordings and resources here and here.

Meet Your Tutors: Doug Clark, Laure Joanny, Trishant Simlai, and Koustubh Sharma

In this special panel episode of Tech Tutors, our presenters answered the following questions:

• Doug Clark: How do I use conservation tech ethically? 
• Laure Joanny: How do I build on existing tools and procedures to use conservation tech ethically?
• Trishant Simlai: How does conservation tech cause harm? 
• Koustubh Sharma: How do I manage ethical issues in the field? 

Click each presenter's name to view the recording from their individual lecture portion of the panel.

*Doug Clark stood in for original panelist Chris Sandbrook in this episode. We are updating the episode resources and Tech Tutors panelists questions to reflect Doug's experience. In the meantime, you can take a look at take a look at the open access papers on this subject by Sandbrook et al. and Sharma et al., and view other resources shared by Doug and participants of this episode below!

You can also view Doug's other Tech Tutors panel episode, How do I build a community-owned conservation tech research project?

Resources

Download a three-page beginner's guide to conservation ethics below. Thank you to Louis Cohen for creating this guide!

Our panel was very excited by the conversations sparked in this episode amongst participants. To continue the discussion, share more resources, and engage with our panels, visit this episode's forum thread here.

Presenter Resources (Research and Relevant Links)

• Research Paper (Doug Clark, Chris Sandbrook, Trishant Simlai):  Principles for the socially responsible use of conservation monitoring technology and data
• Research Paper (Koustubh Sharma): Conservation and people: Towards an ethical code of conduct for the use of camera traps in wildlife research
• Keynote Presentation (Trishant Simlai): Conservation surveillance as a means for state repression? Psychological terror and the spectacles of fear through the use of drones in India
• The First Nations Principles of OCAP
• Doug Clark: Engaging Northern expertise strengthens ecological science
• Research Paper (Chris Sandbrook): The social implications of using drones for biodiversity conservation

Participant Resources

• Contribute: Claire Narraway: Citizen Science Association is requesting case studies on ethics in conservation and ecology citizen science fieldwork. Would be great to have some examples on technology ethics too.
• Research Paper: Modern Wildlife Monitoring Technologies: Conservationists versus Communities? A Case Study: The Terai-Arc Landscape, Nepal
• List of helpful apps and projects focused on mapping indigenous land rights
  • Cadasta is one of those listed, which provides tools to support documentation of lands and resource rights for those living on land without "formal" right or ownership
• Potential of drones as multi-purpose vehicle – risks and added values
• The PARTNERS Principles for Community-Based Conservation
• Research Paper: The Smart Forest Conundrum: Contextualizing Pitfalls of Sensors and AI in Conservation Science for Tropical Forests
• The Indigenous Knowledge Social Network
• Research Paper: Ocean sentinel albatrosses locate illegal vessels and provide the first estimate of the extent of nondeclared fishing 
• A Facilitator's Guide to Species Conservation Planning
• Research Paper: Historical Indigenous Land-Use Explains Plant Functional Trait Diversity
• Research Paper: The scientist abroad: Maximising research impact and effectiveness when working as a visiting scientist

Learn more about our upcoming Tech Tutorials

Visit the series page on WILDLABS to find the full list of WILDLABS Tech Tutors.