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WILDLABS logoWildlabs.net : The conservation technology network

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The WILDLABS Community Base is the ideal place to get oriented with the all that our community platform offers, hear about news and opportunities, and to meet new friends and collaborators.

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discussion

Camera trap recommendations

Stephanie M.

2 April 2026 11:40pm

Hi everyone! I’m looking for camera trap recommendations for a pilot study in Rwanda focused mostly on capturing small to large mammals (both domestic and wild).I’m hoping to find...

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Jorge Ahumada

13 July 2026 11:18pm

I really recommend GardePro. They are not too expensive and very resilient in the field.

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discussion

Welcome to WILDLABS!

WILDLABS Team

29 October 2015 5:16pm

Hello and welcome to the WILDLABS community! With 15,000 members and counting, we want to get to know you a little better. In a couple of...

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Linda Mohamed Haji

10 July 2026 12:10pm

Hello everyone,

My name is Linda Mohamed, a wildlife conservationist from Tanzania with a passion for biodiversity conservation and community-based conservation. I am excited to connect with this community, learn from your experiences, and contribute to meaningful conservation efforts. I look forward to growing, collaborating, and creating a positive impact together. 

Cathy Lin

12 July 2026 10:23am

Hello from Taiwan! 👋

Dear wildlife lovers,

My name is Cathy. I'm from Taiwan, and I work at TSMC as a software product manager.

Sustainability was something my schools in Taiwan started teaching us early on — the simple but powerful idea that we only have one Earth. That interest stayed with me, and I went on to study environmental economics in graduate school.

Life then took me into the semiconductor industry, and somewhere along the way that original commitment quietly moved to the back of my mind. But I recently travelled to Kenya and spent time watching the animals there, and it brought all of it rushing back — the reason I cared in the first place, and the uncomfortable realisation that I haven't yet put my skills to work for the planet in any real way.

That's why I'm here. The area I'm most drawn to is data management — how field data gets collected, structured, stored, and actually turned into something people can use and trust. In my day job I work on systems that handle large volumes of manufacturing data, and I suspect a lot of the underlying problems are the same: messy inputs, inconsistent standards, and hard-won data that never quite reaches the people who need it.

I'd love to learn what data management really looks like in conservation, and where someone with a product and systems background could be useful. If there's a project, a working group, or even just a conversation I could listen in on, I'd be very glad to hear about it.

Looking forward to learning from all of you.

Warmly,
Cathy

Jorge Ahumada

13 July 2026 11:10pm

Hello, I am Jorge! I have been around this community for a while, but never been here. Good to be part of the group!

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discussion

Unlock New Features by Earning Your Community Involvement Badge!

Jake Burton

14 March 2024 11:54am

(Edited in Feb 2026) Hello WILDLABS Community!You can earn badges on your profile to showcase your activity or unlock new features. (Learn about badges here.) ...

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Erik

5 July 2026 6:33pm

Ok

Erik

5 July 2026 6:34pm

The process begins 😂

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discussion

Wildlabs group - "Zoos and Aquariums"

Stephen Leard

3 November 2025 10:56pm

Hi Everyone! 👋We'd like to explore community interest in a potential new Wildlabs group - Zoos and Aquariums.This group would focus on in situ and ex situ...

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Stephen Leard

20 May 2026 2:45pm

This sounds like a great idea indeed, excellent!

I think the linking you suggest is a key role (perhaps the key role?) for zoos and aquariums, and so this group should advance that.

The "nexus effect" I mention at the top of this thread makes me think that a network/resource mapping project would be a great area of focus for this group. For example, to collaborate on tools to highlight exactly the types of linkages you suggest (maybe with something like kumu, graphistry, or Neo4J Bloom.)

Thanks very much for sharing this idea (and please share more!), it is something this group should work on and make happen.

Theo Mclaurin

10 July 2026 9:14am

Hi Stephen, Hi All!

I'm very keen to see this group be created and bring together a wide audience of those interested in Z&A's role in conservation tech. I have recently started as a researcher at Marwell Wildlife / the University of Surrey in the UK, and I like many of you I am particularly interested in how to transfer utility from Zoo research to in-situ contexts. 

Looking forward to chatting to you all as this group grows!

 

Annie Newell-Fugate

11 July 2026 2:09pm

I am very excited about the group being launched and am eagerly awaiting it! This platform is such a unique hub for networking and support. 

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discussion

London Climate Action Week 2026 Conservation Technology Related Events?

Elsa

15 June 2026 2:23pm

Hello, I am trying to put together a list of conservation technology (particularly Remote Sensing & GIS related) events happening during London Climate Action Week....

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Keenan Johnson

16 June 2026 11:20pm

Yes I've just moved to London actually and would love to attend as many events as I can. 

Elsa

21 June 2026 1:10pm

I'd reccomend EO Summit, although this is sort of a stand-alone conference: https://londonclimateactionweek.org/event/eo-summit-2026/ and these two look super interesting too:

If you end up going would be great to have a summary! :)

 

Akiba

22 June 2026 6:22am

I’ll be at LCAW but unfortunately can’t make this event. Posting it here in case others might be interested. 

Lcaw

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event

The Variety Hour: June 2026

Vanesa Reyes

17 June 2026 6:44pm

As we celebrate World Ocean Day this June, join us for a special marine-themed Variety Hour! Explore innovative conservation technologies supporting ocean and coastal conservation, from AI-enabled drones for sea turtle...

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article

The State of Conservation Technology: What Five Years of Data Tell Us 

Vanesa Reyes and 2 more

16 June 2026 7:08pm

Our 2026 report is here, drawing on five years of community-sourced data to explore how the field is evolving, where progress is being made, and where collective action is still needed.

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Jared Marley

17 June 2026 12:33am

Interesting study and good to see it evolve over time. From a hardware manufacturer's perpsective a few items jumped out at me:

Simultaneous Cost and Improvement Demand: I had a chuckle that all hardware products surveyed the top two user feedback was improvements to both Tech Quality and Financial Accessibility "we want it better and cheaper"! These are generally diametrically opposed and are balanced by OEM's for main use case design. Improvements to both are rare and difficult outside of global macro economic factors and underlying technology/manufacturing advancement.

Under-represented Government and Industry Participation Relative to Buying Power. Survey respondents are heavily weighted to NGO/University (60% of respondents) whereas government and private made up 17.5% of respondents. However, the purchasing power is flipped. Many tech products are outbought by budget heavy government/industry by factors of 10-100x. The total domination of income streams for OEM's means their concerns determine development path.

Additionally, with government/industry underrepresented here we can see a divergence between NGO/University dominated feedback in reprots like these taken by early stage companies and then hitting the wall of the government/industry funding machine favouring the commercial offerings of mature businesses. The classic tech startup zombie corp that struggles to bridge the gap between seed funding and long-term sales supported viability.

Manufacturer Multi-Regional Expansion/Distribution: On developer constraints this was not an option on survey response. Regardless of industry, multi-regional expansion is the next biggest test point of a company after initial funding/profit. Very few companies succeed in this stage regardless of industry. Gatekeeping barriers such as increased transportation, tariffs, local distribution costs, and payment/transaction risk kneecap expansions of otherwise functional tech into other markets. Even in best case scenario these additional structural costs are passed onto the consumer, often with less support. 

Global South Accessibility: The report notes a wide bridge between the two. Unfortunately, for most hardware products the smaller, independent markets in the global south are the most expensive for non-local companies to access. We also often cannot easily reduce base price without reducing quality. I wonder about other non-price accessibility levers - such as regional multi-tech hubs with tool librairies, training etc. 

A big takeaway for the larger global north companies is that we should all be considering white labelling or core underlying tech development for adoption by optimized local businesses for the specific regional needs. For example focus on universal and expensive to develop core components like PCB's and leave local optimization such as power supply, housing to local importers/integrators.

 

Vanesa Reyes

17 June 2026 1:21pm

Thanks for these thoughtful reflections and for bringing a hardware manufacturer perspective to the discussion. These are all really interesting points.

I especially appreciated your observation that improving accessibility may require more than simply reducing costs. There may be significant opportunities in alternative models such as regional support hubs, training networks, shared infrastructure, and partnerships with local organizations. These are exactly the kinds of enabling conditions that our findings suggest deserve more attention alongside technological innovation.

We also appreciate any feedback as we're currently preparing the next edition of the survey. Input like this helps us think about how we can continue improving the questions and better capture perspectives from across the conservation technology ecosystem.

Thanks again for taking the time to share your insights.

Kim Hendrikse

25 June 2026 10:08am

Nice comments Jared!

In addition to wanting more quality but cheaper cost. People also want more compute capability and lower power. They want it all basically and for nothing. We all do right ?

Another thing related to cost. In 2023 when I first discovered wildlabs, I developed a sound localizing acoustic ARU that installed with one single command completely on a raspberry pi zero. It is highly accurate. It was free software and cheap to make. No one was interested. Back when there was a chip shortage and the audio moth was in short supply I read that people were craving an open source recorder. Apparently not so anymore in 2023.

At the time I would have loved it to work out with open source. But I realize now that if you actually want to be able to make a difference, then you are going to have to put an enormous effort into it and it's hard to make this viable with open source.

Aside from those glitches though, I've made some great connections with wildlabber's that are working out very well. Several.

Going the commercial route I am able to put quality into the products that would be really really hard to do with open source. I've invested a huge amount of personal money into the development of my products and I'm deeply grateful to those wildlabber's that I'm working with now as it's working out.

But commercial does pull in the other direction to open source. But be aware of false economies. If a system is open source then it could potentially cost a lot more than a commercial product if a lot work is needed to get where you want to go with open source in comparison with a commercial product.

Going commercial though is also very very challenging, even for seasoned software developers.

I guess the message I have is that as someone starting out as an individual I was a corner case. And if you want to make a difference then you need to change that, it doesn't matter what you have to offer, that's what I've learned. So either form a company, an NGO or make an alliance. I've both formed a company and made alliances. And in my case closed source was the only way I could make a viable company. Other people may be able to make a viable NGO with open source.

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discussion

What questions would you ask an AI agent for conservation tech?

Talia Speaker

8 July 2025 5:49pm

If you had access to an agent trained specifically to provide guidance on conservation technology tools + methods, what would you ask it? It sounds like a lot of folks are...

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Maggie Bliss

6 June 2026 11:31pm

Elionai - your point about lessons from past deployments and "what tends to fail first" really resonates. I think that gap between ideal-condition performance and what actually holds up in the field is one of the most underrated questions in this whole space.

I'm building something that integrates environmental monitoring, so I'd love to pick your brain on the edge/deployment side. Messaging you to connect!

Sandro Von Matter

7 June 2026 6:48pm

I would probably ask: “If your code basically does not allow you to take harmful actions, what should you do if you are provided with irrefutable proof that your existence, supported by components built and developed with “rare minerals” extracted from conflict areas is actually harming and destroying indigenous communities and biodiversity?”

Manikandan Sundaramoorthy

15 June 2026 10:08pm

Hello,
This is an incredible initiative, and exactly the kind of practical AI application that can make a huge impact in the conservation space!

As an AI Solutions Architect based in the US with 20 years of tech experience, I have built several RAG (Retrieval-Augmented Generation) and Agentic solutions. I would love to contribute directly to the implementation or consulting side of this project if required.

Whether you need help with structuring the retrieval pipelines for the forum data, designing the agentic workflows, or handling the backend and cloud deployment, I would be happy to jump in and support the build.

Please let me know how I can best get involved, or if you'd like to chat about the technical architecture and how to bring this to life!

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event

London Climate Action Week 2026

Elsa

15 June 2026 2:27pm

LCAW is a key moment in the global climate calendar — where climate action happens between COPs, where the UN Global Climate Action Agenda comes alive in cities and communities, and where the international climate...

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