Because connectivity solutions are vital to so much of our conservation tech work, our Connectivity group unites users working across a variety of tech tools. Our community has often flagged connectivity as being extremely important to their work's success, yet the buzzword solutions like IoT and LoRa can be intimidating to conservationists who are new to the topic. In this is the catch-all space for discussing the wide range of communications networks that are becoming increasingly integral to retrieving data in modern conservation tech systems, we welcome beginners, experts, and everyone in between to get involved!
By connecting novices and experts to discuss and demystify connectivity in conservation tech, this group can serve as a place to learn and explore, with spaces to talk about recent progress and developments on the horizon, share resources to help others understand key connectivity issues and why it's relevant to their work, ask questions and troubleshoot, and much more.
Below, you'll find one of our Tech Tutors episodes introducing the subject of connectivity through a tutorial on LoRa:
Sean Sturley: How do I get started with LoRa? Connectivity in conservation
And here you'll find an episode on using satellite IoT:
Alasdair Davies: How do I use satellite IoT to track wildlife and monitor remote equipment?
Finally, here's a great example of a multisensor network connecting devices across a landscape in New Zealand, courtesy of Andrew Digby (see original post here)

Header image: Njoroge Nyamu (see original post here)
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Article
Read our interview with Clementine Uwamahoro, African Parks’ Country Manager in Conservation Technology overlooking technology operations for both Akagera National Park and Nyungwe National Park.
29 November 2023
TagRanger® is a state-of-the-art wildlife finding, monitoring and tracking solution for research, conservation and environmental professionals. With superior configurability for logging data, reporting location and...
23 November 2023
Many people know of the Mozilla Foundation because of the FireFox browser and other open source software they produce together with countless volunteers. Perhaps less well known, the Mozilla Foundation also runs a...
4 October 2023
The GSMA ClimateTech programme
21 June 2023
In this Conservation Tech Showcase case study from Big Life Foundation, you’ll learn about their successes using EarthRanger and LoRaWAN Smart Parks Solution technologies to monitor wildlife in East Africa.
8 June 2023
Careers
1 year position at Osa Conservation - Remote
8 May 2023
The Zoological Society of London, with the support of WILDLABS and the UK Space Agency, are proud to publish this new guide to satellite technologies for tracking wildlife.
17 February 2023
Careers
The Senior Conservation Technology Specialist will be responsible for providing technical advice and capacity development to GWP project teams on conservation technology, distilling challenges and lessons from project...
22 September 2022
Article
An update on Ceres Tags products that are being used in conservation
22 August 2022
Article
Ceres Tag sends just in time alerts and GPS location to have the power to track and trace.
22 July 2022
“It’s such a massive leap forwards knowing where every rhino is every morning and every evening.” Fast Company writes about Smart Parks, a Netherlands-based organization with technological solutions against poaching.
14 July 2022
Careers
Love design, passionate about conversation? Want to make sure that technologies that are being developed actually meet the needs of the people who use them? Come and work for us!
13 July 2022
November 2023
event
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Have you tried or considered Garmin Inreach or Zoleo trackers?I have experience with Garmin Inreach in relatively rugged terrain in Greenland (probably not as steep as what you... |
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Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Protected Area Management Tools | 2 months 2 weeks ago | |
@richardturere Hello :) and a warm welcome to WILDLABS! Here is the link to @Lekato Samuel Lekato - Founder and Chairman, Enduata Emaa CBO. Sam is interested in conservation... |
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Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Conservation Tech Training and Education, East Africa Community, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 4 months 1 week ago | |
Hi WildLabs,ZSL is looking for Beta testers for Instant Detect 2.0. If you are a conservationist, scientist or wildlife ranger with... |
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Camera Traps, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 6 months 3 weeks ago | |
Hello all! Bluspark is a plateform that allows natural area managers such as natural parks or reserves to optimize their day to day... |
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Citizen Science, Community Base, Connectivity, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Protected Area Management Tools, Software and Mobile Apps | 7 months 1 week ago | |
The eVorta website is still VERY empty but will be worth keeping an eye out for for sure. At first, from the notes above, I thought that this was Edge AI but in the article linked... |
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Camera Traps, Connectivity | 8 months 1 week ago | |
Rainforest Connection's (RFCx) Guardian devices may be of interest. They are solar-powered and have connectivity options for Wifi, GSM and satellite transfer. They've previously... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Data management and processing tools, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors | 10 months ago | |
Hi Steph. Would be interested also. |
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Biologging, Community Base, Connectivity, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Remote Sensing & GIS | 11 months 3 weeks ago | |
Hi Everyone,We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating. Getting a gateway cost us $... |
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Biologging, Build Your Own Data Logger Community, Camera Traps, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Sensors | 1 year 1 month ago | |
Dear Community,Together with Hackster.io, Seeed Studio is very happy to jointly organize “IoT Into the Wild Contest for Sustainable Plant... |
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AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Open Source Solutions, Sensors | 1 year 5 months ago | |
Can also recommend looking into Argos: https://www.cls-telemetry.com/argos-solutions/argos-services/ The transmitter can send a few messages per day and the messages are... |
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Remote Sensing & GIS, Connectivity | 1 year 7 months ago | |
Just wanted to drop in to thank Alasdair for stepping in last moment to give an amazing talk about Satellite IOT while streaming the whole thing from a satellite connection (... |
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Connectivity | 2 years 2 months ago | |
Hi Barry, I am tinkering with similar edge devices and aspirations! I recently acquired the Jetson Nano to start testing some aspects of the BearID Project software pipeline.... |
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Connectivity, Sensors | 2 years 8 months ago |
Paving the Way for Women: LoRaWAN Technology in Akagera National Park with Clementine Uwamahoro

29 November 2023 5:22pm
ICOTEQ launch TAGRANGER® system of products
23 November 2023 1:25pm
Insight; a secure online platform designed for sharing experiences of conservation tool use.
7 November 2023 1:01pm
A secure platform designed for those working to monitor & protect natural resources. Insight facilitates sharing experience, knowledge & tools to increase efficiency & effectiveness in conservation. By sharing we reduce time & money spent to find, test, & implement solutions.
Mozilla Foundation, funding for nature conservation
4 October 2023 6:30pm
1st Wildlife Scientific Conference 2023
25 September 2023 11:10am
Recommendations for Personnel Trackers in challenging terrain
18 August 2023 2:22pm
17 September 2023 1:33pm
Hi Lisa.
Did you ever find a solution for this? Would love to chat more about the use case and requirements.
Akiba
18 September 2023 8:10am
Have you tried or considered Garmin Inreach or Zoleo trackers?
I have experience with Garmin Inreach in relatively rugged terrain in Greenland (probably not as steep as what you have).
They work relatively well. One disadvantage with the early models is that the tracking data can not be downloaded directly from the devices as .gpx but needs to take the detour over the Garmin cloud. The newer models have direct download of tracks available.
I like the fact that the Garmin units are proper standalone handheld GPS units to be used for navigation and waypoint marking and you can also relatively easily share your own location and even points of interest with team members in the field (by sending geotagged messages - not actual waypoints, unfortunately).
Garmin Inreach is listed as an EarthRanger partner at https://www.earthranger.com/partner but I have no idea if there is any possibility of real integration.
Cheers,
Lars
Alibaba Cloud's Geo Fencing System in the Mara
1 September 2023 12:27pm
Wilson Sairowua, Tracking Manager at Mara Elephant Project (MEP) narrates how tech4change, Alibaba Cloud's Geo Fencing System paired with collaring has helped to mitigate human-elephant conflict across Maasai Mara and has facilitated a 72% increase in elephants in the Mara region
Interested in being part of the Enduata Emaa CBO's Green Planet Ambassadors Project in Amboseli?
5 July 2023 10:28am
25 July 2023 1:14pm
@richardturere Hello :) and a warm welcome to WILDLABS! Here is the link to @Lekato Samuel Lekato - Founder and Chairman, Enduata Emaa CBO. Sam is interested in conservation technology focused on how to keep wild animals away from community homesteads in Amboseli and I reckon your Lion Lights could help. I'll let you two take on the conversation from here. Thanks!
The Wildlife Society Conference
19 June 2023 5:59am
Big Life Foundation: Improving Connectivity to Fight Wildlife Crime

8 June 2023 10:00am
Apply to Beta test Instant Detect 2.0
11 May 2023 10:55am
ICCB 2023 WILDLABS Workshop: Bridging Sectors for Movement Ecology Innovation
9 May 2023 8:37pm
Connectivity Data Scientist: climate corridors and biodiversity resilience in Central America
Bluspark - Integrated management platefmorm for protected areas
28 April 2023 9:28pm
Camera trap. Snow Leopard reserve Kyrgyzstan. Solar+4G+Video. System upgrade.
15 December 2022 3:32pm
16 March 2023 6:05am
Hi Kumar
I wanted to contact you about the possibility of collaborating in the project I mentioned before. Where is good to contact you? [email protected] ? You can also email me from our website www.baiboosun.com
Looking forward from hearing from you
Luciano Foglia
24 March 2023 9:14pm
Look into evorta.
It is an Australian company that is doing exactly this.
You can.
- Have an offline camera that can be trained to ID specific species,
- send you just the photos of those species via satellite
- Or if you can get 4g send you all the photos to their online database.
- They also have an online database that allows you to analyse the data in real time.
- They can also hack normal camera traps so they can send photos back to the main unit to process and send valid photos. That way you only need one ‘smart’ camera. All the rest can be your exsisting cameras. You just need to use your sd card slot.
Here is an article here
Best to contact him through email.
I’ll send it to you privately
25 March 2023 1:11pm
The eVorta website is still VERY empty but will be worth keeping an eye out for for sure. At first, from the notes above, I thought that this was Edge AI but in the article linked to it seems that the ML and animal ID happens after 4G download of the images.
I will just throw a link to relatively recent paper where a standard cameratrap was "hacked" and Edge AI ID could send alerts via Iridium: Real-time alerts from AI-enabled camera traps using the Iridium satellite network and here is more from some of the authors of that paper:
Download Now: A Best Practice Guide to Satellite Technologies for Tracking Wildlife

17 February 2023 10:29am
17 February 2023 11:34am
20 February 2023 9:34am
Commercially available connected audio sensors
2 February 2023 3:08pm
2 February 2023 3:55pm
Hi!
I am not aware of any such connected loggers/recorders but they would be nice.
The AudioMoths have been revolutionary in providing audologging at a low cost but they take a lot of "data muling" (carrying SD cards in and out of the field sites) and swapping of batteries.
Cheers,
2 February 2023 7:50pm
Hi Lars, thanks for the response. We are using lots of Song Meter Micro's atm and they have proved to be resilient. Just need something which doesn't involve going on site regularly - but get the data off.
3 February 2023 7:04pm
Rainforest Connection's (RFCx) Guardian devices may be of interest. They are solar-powered and have connectivity options for Wifi, GSM and satellite transfer. They've previously been used for detecting e.g., gunshots or chainsaws (using edge computing) and then sending positive detections/alerts to folks on the ground. RFCx also hosts Arbimon, a free, no-code software platform that facilitates analysis of audio data as well. Happy to chat more if you'd like to talk further about it!
Key Conservation Platform Launch Party!
2 February 2023 6:17am
Advanced Field School in Computational Ecology
25 January 2023 2:54pm
New paper - Real-time alerts from AI-enabled camera traps using the Iridium satellite network: A case-study in Gabon, Central Africa
13 January 2023 12:12am
Sending real-time alerts from ecological sensors such as camera traps in areas with poor data connectivity is complex and involves integrating a large number of potentially complex hardware and software components. Our results demonstrate that these components can be successfully integrated to achieve reliable, near real-time alerts from camera traps under challenging field conditions.
Workshop Invite: Building Partnerships between Conservation Tech and the UK Space Sector
22 September 2022 3:50pm
5 December 2022 3:10pm
Hi Steph,
If it's not too late, I'm very interested in this workshop.
Best,
V
6 December 2022 5:52pm
Hey Vance! We hosted the workshop a few weeks ago, but we're doing follow up calls and future meetings. I'll loop you into the next call!
Steph
12 December 2022 12:03am
Hi Steph. Would be interested also.
Rainforest SigFox available for use
26 August 2022 6:09pm
26 September 2022 10:20pm
Hi Roland,
This is really amazing, great to hear about your set-up! I'm just wondering what the overall cost was to set up this system? Just thinking in terms of setting up something similar in other parks and what they should expect with regard to price. Would also be great to hear about the overall effort, e.g., hours/team members required. It would be great to have this act as a blueprint for other organizations/research stations wishing to deploy a similar system within their respective national parks/areas/etc.!
10 October 2022 8:33am
Hi Rolland,
Interested too, but why did you choose SigFox (a private network) rather than LoRa (open network)?
Sigfox currently has some financial troubles that, don't know what it will become in the long term.
18 October 2022 11:55am
Hi Everyone,
We chose sigfox becuase it seems to have better range and is plug-play, whereas LoRa requires more custom programming and updating. Getting a gateway cost us $2000 for a year's lease + deposit. We covered solar power. There are also some 'minigateways' you can purchase but I don't know how they compare in range (plan to test). So far we are happy with the performance, in that it has worked consistency with no outages (once we stabilized the power supply). I think the annual costs are about $10 per tag. We are working on a paper that will describe this in more detail. So far just using for tracking tags but also looking at a trap sensor.
cheers
Roland
Frontiers Symposium: Digital tools for reversing environmental degradation
5 October 2022 10:23am
Senior Conservation Technology Expert Position (Consultancy) with the Global Wildlife Program
22 September 2022 5:35pm
Workshop: Building UK Partnerships for Conservation Technology
22 September 2022 3:02pm
Ceres Wild Rhino application
22 August 2022 1:29am
29 September 2022 4:05am
CERES TAG
22 July 2022 3:36am
Fast Company Feature: Smart Parks
14 July 2022 4:19pm
Service Designer
13 July 2022 9:05am
22 August 2023 1:31pm
Hi Lisa,
Not my area of expertise either and hopefully I'm not way off base here as it's not a cheap tracker but...have you looked at near vertical incident skywave (NVIS) radio systems? I was trialling them in Nouabalé-Ndoki - we didn't have the terrain issues but we did have vegetation issues - and they worked really well over long distances. Also possible to integrate with Earthranger if I recall correctly.
Hope this is of at least a little help.
Best,
Emma