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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 opportunitys, and to meet new friends and collaborators. 

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discussion

Conservation Technology Database

Hasita Bhammar

18 July 2019 4:42pm

Dear Group Members, I work with the Global Wildlife Program which includes projects in 19 countries around Asia and Africa on combating illegal wildlife trade, reducing human-...

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mzec

27 August 2019 9:51am

Are you familiar with the Conservation Evidence database? https://www.conservationevidence.com/

It is a searchable database of conservation actions (including but not limited to technological solutions), categorised by effectiveness with relevant references. To me it sounds a lot like what you are looking for.

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discussion

A community response to help support the Australian bushfire crisis

Alasdair Davies

4 January 2020 11:01pm

Hi all, The bushfire crisis in Australia is beyond words. I've been talking to a few Australian friends and WL community members @Rob+Appleby @JessieOliver etc trying...

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Alasdair Davies

18 February 2020 10:17am

Hi all,

I've put together a short list (below) that I've pulled from the Slack channel related to long term and short term projects that were noted or posted.

It's clear that one need is to identify if a quarterly meeting (to see where various projects are vs start anything new) is needed, or that we see if anyone in the community is able fill a voluntary co-ordination role to check up on various projects. One thing at the back of my mind is to look at this from the perspective that if new fires start at scale what could we have in place, or how could we react. That may drive forward a few ideas and help us to focus on what we can do in the short term as there are plenty of project discussions around physical water feeders etc.

Here's what I got from the Slack channel;

Long term

- Work with Conservation Volunteers Australia to establish projects suitable for volunteers, especially things that can be done remotely, but also out in the field.

- Develop a small but skilled and experienced "brains trust" that can provide input for any environmental project / organisation which needs 'tech smarts' but doesn't have them in house.

Short term

- Australian Citizen Science Association - short term priorities are replacing lost nest boxes and getting more she-oaks in the ground. That has to start happening soon to be useful for the 2020 breeding season (the boxes, not the trees obviously).

- Continue to assess recovery program staff needs and the recovery team's priorities

- Zooniverse want to test ALA data sharing, using air quality data can involve remote volunteers without danger

- Setting up field cameras in burnt areas, to identify remaining wildlife or ferals (Zooniverse, ALA/DigiVol)

- Recording wildlife water point or feed locations and monitoring for maintenance, ie refills. (Kobo, other app?

- Setting up shelter tunnels in burnt areas - and recording locations, with possible addition of field cameras (Zooniverse, ALA/Digivol).

****

 

Alasdair Davies

2 April 2020 3:35pm

Hello everyone. I hope you're well and your friends and families are safe during the Covid-19 crisis. I know that many of us are out of sync during the shut downs around the world so it isn't the easiest of times to think back on the bush fires, but also at the back of mind is the recurrence again and the recovery still underway / getting ahead of time with solutions. There is however a new opportunity that has come to light. The Australian Government has opened an application form for a $100k - £1m grant, with the desc;

The Wildlife and Habitat Bushfire Recovery Program will provide funding to support the immediate survival and long-term recovery and resilience for fire-affected Australian animals, plants, ecological communities and other natural assets and their cultural values for Indigenous Australians.

This may be the opportunity we need to move forward and progress some of the ideas we all noted. We will need Oz group WildLABS orgs and contacts on the ground, but if feel you have the capacity at this time to support a submission and be a part of it, then get in touch.

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discussion

Bipod suggestion

Erik Himmel

28 March 2020 9:31am

I am considering adding a bipod to my rifle this season. I have never used one and I need recommendations as to what the best options are. First, What height range should I be...

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discussion

Is this group still live?

sjc07

2 January 2019 5:09pm

I am curious to learn about whats next for the Zoohackathon and how I can get involved?

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Sophie Maxwell

15 January 2019 5:14pm

Hi,

So I have found out that Zoohackathon may actually happen in June 2019 this year, which is earlier than normal. I'm meeting with the US Embassy w/c 28th Jan and hope to find out more then and will follow up after,

Soph 

alex kuhn

20 February 2020 12:18am

Hello!

I'm new here, so I've missed these past events. I would love to hear about any upcoming hackathons :) 

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discussion

Innovate for Wildlife and People Challenge - Deadline February 24

Anna van der Heijden

20 December 2019 6:36pm

The WWF Wildlife Practice is hosting an innovation challenge focused on increasing the long-term benefits of conservation efforts for local people.  Project...

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Anna van der Heijden

31 January 2020 1:06pm

Hi Everyone -

This Innovation Challenge is now open for Project Ideas, so if you are interested please go ahead and read more on the Challenge page here, where you will also find the link to Sign Up as a Project Leader or download a PDF that shows the application template and the background to the challenge.

We really welcome any ideas that fit the challenge description, and if you engage, we will have a chance to also further develop your Project idea during the review phase, based on feedback by a global community of subject-matter experts. 

https://impactio.global/innovate-for-wildlife-and-people-challenge

Any questions, I am here! Anna

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discussion

내려 anigana.co.kr/sandz/ - 샌즈카지노

yakumo99ce

16 January 2020 12:15pm

기도 녹아 내려 https://anigana.co.kr/sandz/ - 샌즈카지노 https://anigana.co.kr/ - 우리카지노주위는 금세 폐허가 되었다.  "크르르릉!" 마염신무액을 머리 끝부터 발끝까지 뒤집어쓴 독각응룡은 마구 괴성 을 지르며 발광을 했다.

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discussion

The future of conservation tech: 5 key discussions

Stephanie O'Donnell

22 August 2019 5:31pm

Hi everyone,  I just posted my wrap up from ICCB 2019, though in reality it's more of a synthesis of all of what I've been hearing from you all over the past...

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Chris Sandbrook

27 August 2019 12:47pm

Who, who, who?

Steph! Steph! Steph!

Andy_Jones

27 August 2019 9:24pm

Hi Steph - as a career technologist now looking to see how I can engage my skills and experience in the world of conservation technology, this is pretty interesting review of the state of play right now.

All organisations (commercial, government, not-for-profits, military and other services ) struggle with the question of how and when to deploy technology as part of their overall systems of operation and how then to ensure that they reap the expected benefits. It's not simple, there is rarely if ever a perfect solution of any scope and longevity but of course many organisations do garner very significant beneifts from the efficient use of mainstream technologies and the innovative use of unusual or emerging technologies.

A few quick remarks spring to mind from your notes:

1) The Gartner hype cycle - it's a pretty useful visualisation (much of the latter part of my career was spent trying to guide technologies targeted at large enterprises from the "early adopter" to the "mainstream" stages) and most useful for helping a tech user to decide what kind of user they should be in their current context and where the technologies that are coming under consideration fall on that cycle of maturity. A mismatch ? Then take care ...

2) Conservation tech is not a washing machine - well that depends. I imagine there are a number of different techs and projects and the "washing machine" status will vary. If you know that the tech you NEED to meet your project aims is unproven, don't expect a washing machine level of ease of use !  If you think you're deploying a mainstream tech, then DO expect a "washing machine". As an example, if you buy and deploy a simple camera trap, you expect a good manual (albeit developed for the manufacturer's target market, which may be hunters in the USA)  and you expect the device to operate in accordance with the manual. If you're deploying a set of networked sensors that will use AI in real time to detect and interact with animals in the environment - don't expect a smooth ride. In fact in this latter case, proving the technology may be one of the objectives of the study, whereas in the former, the data being collected was the required resource for the study objectives. 

3) System engineering and enterprise architecture are the two disciplines that organisation use to try to get their whole tech strategy and execution to work to meet their goals. Done well, it means that the business goals are identified and understood and the allocation of tasks between people and different techs is optimally made for performance and cost effectiveness. It's how to ensure a well balanced overall system and process approach. It's an area that been studied and there are methods for implementing this discipline. In fact, if I then add there are many, many methods for implementation, you may realise that it's a problem that's easily stated and less easily solved, but still is generally better that having a splash on the latest shiny tech and hoping for the best.

4) There will be trends, experiences and best practices that can be shared, but naturally these emerge as technologies mature - nobody knows best practice the first time  and innovators will also necessarily face unique challenges. However defining some ontologies or frameworks to help record and structure experiences may very well be worthwhile

Andy 

 

 

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discussion

Discussion: 5 Ways To Advance Conservation Entrepreneurship

Lev Birman

29 July 2019 6:42pm

Just read this article from August 2016. I found it highly relevant and wanted to post it to get some discussion going. Post something and I promise to keep the conversation going...

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Lev Birman

29 July 2019 7:15pm

I'll start.

My current thinking is that social-change is impractical to achieve directly. I think that ultimately, we cannot start by depending on human altruism and changing view points because economic issues such as poverty are too prevalent, especially where lots of habitat destruction occurs (Brasil gold mining, illegal logging, unsustainable palm oil farming). Economic incentive must be the primary driver. People must be able to make more money using sustainable approaches than they do with the unsustainable. For that, the sustainable approaches must be more efficient or serve a larger market. I'm not set in this thinking by any means, but it seems to me be a strong viewpoint. It's pure business. 

That said, I think conservation efforts should be focused on doing that business development worldwide and one place for biologists would be in ensuring that the production being done is actually sustianable. The kinds of business development might be "clean gold", another example is the Brasil nuts that are produced by an indigenous forest community. How many more businesses like Brasil nuts can we produce? Can we make sustainable wood cheaper/better than unsustainable? 

I think the most important issue to address is "How do we choke unsustainable supply chains?"

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discussion

Virtual Meetup Discussion: Tools and Spaces for Collaboration

Stephanie O'Donnell

8 May 2019 12:55pm

Hi everyone,  We're just a few hours away from our next virtual meetup, this one will be all about Tools and Spaces for Collaboration. We'll hear from our three...

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Talia Speaker

14 May 2019 7:46pm

Hi all,

The recording and notes are now available here. Enjoy!

Talia

krasi_georgiev

24 June 2019 2:27pm

Could you enable a download so I can watch while I am offline.

 

I think zoom have an option to enable the download button.

Talia Speaker

18 July 2019 10:46pm

Unfortunately, we're not set up to enable download for video recordings at the moment, but we do plan to upload shorter clips of each presentation to YouTube in the near future. We could also potentially make an audio-only version available for download if that would be of interest?

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discussion

Are you headed to ICCB 2019?

Stephanie O'Donnell

12 July 2019 11:53am

Hi everyone,  We'll be at ICCB next week and organising a heap of tech related activities. If you're around and want to meet other wildlabbers, please drop me a...

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Laure Joanny

18 July 2019 3:07am

Hi Steph,

Thanks for starting this thread. I'll be at ICCB too. I am presenting on social and organisational aspects of implementing technologies for protected area management and security on Tuesday 23rd at the session starting 11:45. Would love to join the meetups as well!

Harold Tay

18 July 2019 3:19am

Yay!  Will you also be at the pre-conference short course?

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discussion

Introducing your new (beta) dashboard

Stephanie O'Donnell

4 July 2018 5:13pm

Hi everyone,  As some of you may have noticed, we've quitely gone live with a beta version of a new dashboard for WILDLABS today. You can access it right now by...

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Arky

31 March 2019 10:23am

Hey, 

Am a developer, I would be happy to give some feedback and lend you a hand. 

The first major suggestion is related to the Typography. The font size are too large on some browsers. Also the embedded fonts doesn't always work on all browser/operating systems, for instance on chromium. 

See the attached screenshots below:

Large typeface:

https://pasteboard.co/I7WJtCO.png

Large titles:

https://pasteboard.co/I7WJPZy.png

Some type/icons fail to load 

https://pasteboard.co/I7WKsxZH.png

 

HTH

arky

Stephanie O'Donnell

3 June 2019 5:12pm

Hi everyone, 

New functionality for you! We've added in a email option. You can now elect to receive a regular email that summarises new conversations from the groups you're a member of. A lot of people have asked to recieve a notification when new discussion threads are started in your groups. This is our answer to that request, and we hope it offers helpful alerts while avoiding overwhelming your inbox with notifications.

At this stage, we have it set to be sent on the 1st of the month. We can change this to give you more options (e.g. you could elect to get it fortnightly), but while we're testing it we thought it best to keep it simple. This timing should compliment your regular Community Digest that we curate from across the full community -we aim to have this come out in the middle of the month.  

To turn this email on, visit your dashboard and click the cogs under your profile image on the left. Go to the 'Privacy & Notifications' tab, and then select the checkbox next to 'Please send me an email summary of the activities in my subscribed groups' (see screenshot attached). You can update your preferences here at any time. 

If you want to see any changes (e.g. different timing options?) please let us know!

Stephanie 

 

Sarah Gluszek

4 June 2019 1:42pm

Hi Steph and WildLabs team, this is a great idea and I'm liking these added options. I just noticed that when accessing conversations from the Dashboard > My Groups, there's no option on there to 'subscribe to this conversation' or to click onto the original conversation URL to do so.

Thanks for continually innovating!

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discussion

WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Series – Season 2!

Talia Speaker

19 February 2019 3:35pm

First of all, we want to extend a huge thank you to everyone who contributed to the success of the first season of the WILDLABS Virtual Meetup Series. The...

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Akiba

14 March 2019 3:49am

Hi Steph. 

Thanks for the clarification. I had misunderstood and thought it was a call for volunteers to propose potential talks for the virtual meetups. I hadn't realized the speakers were already chosen. Ha ha ha. I will take a look at the previous meetups to understand the format better. Looking forward to the next one and will participate in the discussion :)

Akiba

Talia Speaker

7 May 2019 3:18pm

Hi all, 

Reminder that the second event in Season 2 of the series is happing TOMORROW May 8 from 2pm-3:30pm GMT / 10am-11:30am EDT! Note that this is 3pm-4:30pm BST due to daylight savings. The meetup will focus on Tools & Spaces for Collaboration, with contributions from 3 wonderful speakers and 3 innovative makerspaces/field labs. You can still register here to join. For those who are unable to join us live, the meetup will be recorded and shared on the series page within a week of the event.

Hope to see you tomorrow!

Talia

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discussion

Help requested—verifiable stories where low-tech solutions beats out high-tech

Dave Cortright

8 April 2019 5:15pm

Hi all, I know this forum is focused on using technology to aid in conservation, but I also know that technology isn't a silver bullet and in some cases low-tech solutions...

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Dave Cortright

13 April 2019 10:26pm

One more that just came to mind is the beehive fences that help protect crops and reduce elephant-human conflict. Dr Lucy King will be speaking in just under 2 hours on this topic, live-streamed on the WCN Facebook page: 

https://www.facebook.com/wildnet/

more information on the elephants and bees project: 

http://elephantsandbees.com/

Rob Appleby

17 April 2019 3:07pm

Conservation dogs is a big one, with koala scat dogs being highly successful here in QLD, Aus. I also was at the local dump the other day and I noticed that one of the crew working there was walking around cracking a whip to disperce all the ibis trying to get into the pit. They all seemed to fly away immediately, and he was a good 30m or so from the nearest bird. As this sort of thing is of great interest to me, I approached him and asked a bunch of questions, like, how long does it take them to return, and what other things have you tried? He was really helpful. Basically, the whip along with water sprayers are the only things so far that consistently work to keep the birds away for any length of time. They tried 'loud sound players' (didn't know much more than that) to no avail and the public also complained. I was there a good half an hour talking with him and I didn't see any birds come back into the pit, but he said sometimes it only takes about ten minutes. Other times it can be hours. It's interesting because there's a study showing that macropods didn't habituate to either a whip crack or their own warning stimulus (foot stomp - see: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0014549), so perhaps the whip crack is a little more immune to habituation/desensitization? 

Rob Appleby

17 April 2019 3:19pm

Here's a link to a study about koala scat detection dogs: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep08349?dom=pscau&src=syn and check out Figure 1, which compares difference in time between detections in dogs and humans: https://www.nature.com/articles/srep08349/figures/1

It's hilarious! Literally my favourite box-and-whiskers plot of all time (and yes, I do have a favourite).

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discussion

Debate: Tech giants moving into conservation in the future

Spencer Dixon

12 April 2019 12:20pm

The intersection of tech and conservation will see tech giants move into philanthropic environmental projects to mitigate their bad image, provide employees a feeling of worth and...

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Stephanie O'Donnell

12 April 2019 12:33pm

Interesting question. Dropping some replies you're already getting from @samrye and @Alasdair on Twitter here to help move the discussion along:  

Thoughts... I have many.

Are you wondering about likelihood, or something else though?@Al2kA might have some musings...?

— Sam Rye (@sam__rye) April 12, 2019

It’s an interesting thing to think about the future players of conservation efforts. Data science will certainly be a driving force and who better to take a slice of the pie than tech monopolies?

— Spencer Dixon  (@spencerldixon) April 12, 2019

This has already started with Microsoft appointing @lucasjoppa as Chief Environmental Officer. Private sector will take bigger steps into conservation.

— Spencer Dixon  (@spencerldixon) April 12, 2019

There's definetly a rise in the big players exposing their tools for conservation use (Google's TensorFlow), but long-term in field commitment is their achilles heel. They still need NGOs & will predominently focus on big data that's eaiser to access (remote sensing vs in field)

— Alasdair Davies (@Al2kA) April 12, 2019

Harold Tay

14 April 2019 1:43am

One concern I have is that just as tech companies tend to agglomerate into a monopoly, so too might thoughts regarding conservation.  We might end up with a mental monoculture.

For instance, the popular wisdom at this time seems to be that we must priotitise the microplastic pollution problem, although some experts feel climate change is the more pressing issue.  What can be tempting for a large company is to only concentrate on the thing they are best positioned to act upon.  Given their pulpit and ubiquity, this view can become canon in the popular mind.

On the other hand, it's been commented that conservation efforts are so fragmented, that a powerful leader can unify these disparate NGOs under a common framework.

 

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