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)
- @capreolus
- | he/him
Capreolus e.U.
wildlife biologist with capreolus.at
- 1 Resources
- 68 Discussions
- 16 Groups
- @tve
- | he
techie
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 3 Groups
- @hjayanto
- | He/Him
Your friendly Indo-Crocky-Croc
- 0 Resources
- 29 Discussions
- 16 Groups
WILDLABS & Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS)
I hold a PhD in Biological Sciences and specialize in bioacoustics and passive acoustic monitoring of cetaceans in the Argentine Sea and Antarctica. Recently, I've also embraced computing to leverage technology in enhancing our conservation efforts.
- 0 Resources
- 2 Discussions
- 14 Groups
GIS & Remote sensing technical specialist at Fauna & Flora
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 2 Groups
- @Durgananda
- | He
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 20 Groups
Director of Icoteq Ltd, an electronics and software design consultancy developing wireless products and solutions to organisations working in the conservation, wildlife monitoring and anti-poaching sectors. Developers of the TagRanger® novel wildlife tracking products.
- 1 Resources
- 8 Discussions
- 7 Groups
Technical Specialist at FFI: loves data management, maps, remote sensing & GIS for conservation
- 0 Resources
- 2 Discussions
- 9 Groups
Sustainability Manager for CERES Tag LTD. An animal health company; animal monitoring, conservation, & anti-poaching/ rural crime. Wildlife, livestock, equine & companion. #CeresTrace #CeresWild #CeresRanch
- 2 Resources
- 19 Discussions
- 24 Groups
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 5 Groups
- @StephODonnell
- | She / Her
WILDLABS & Fauna & Flora
I'm the Community Manager at WILDLABS
- 152 Resources
- 659 Discussions
- 30 Groups
I'm a Mechanical Engineer and I have been involved in test and measurement, IT maintenance consulting, database development, field installation, field maintenance, systems analysis, theater composition and an active synthesist. Currently engaged in conservation volunteer work
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 7 Groups
Article
Read in detail about how to use The Inventory, our new living directory of conservation technology tools, organisations, and R&D projects.
1 May 2024
Article
The Inventory is your one-stop shop for conservation technology tools, organisations, and R&D projects. Start contributing to it now!
1 May 2024
Careers
The Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute is seeking a Program Manager to help coordinate multiple organizations in an effort to integrate movement data & camera trap data with global...
22 April 2024
The Smithsonian National Zoo & Conservation Biology Institute is seeking a Postdoctoral Research Fellow to help us integrate movement data & camera trap data with global conservation policy.
22 April 2024
The Lonely Hearts Club Challenge is a $1 million commitment and open funding call for early-stage organizations and solutions focused on fostering meaningful social connection, teen belonging, and wellbeing in a tech-...
13 March 2024
Catch up on the conservation tech discussions and events that happened during World Wildlife Day 2024!
7 March 2024
The primary focus of the research is to explore how red deer movements, space use, habitat selection and foraging behaviour change during the wolf recolonization process.
10 February 2024
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
July 2024
event
March 2024
event
February 2024
2 Products
Recently updated products
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
---|---|---|---|---|
Hi everyone, @craig joined last month's Variety Hour to chat about Tagranger, which you can read more about here. A TagRanger®... |
|
Biologging, Connectivity, Sensors | 2 weeks 1 day ago | |
Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the... |
|
Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Biologging, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Drones, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps, Wildlife Crime | 3 months ago | |
I’ve used the things network before. It was developed in the Netherlands. The things network can be seen like an ISP. TTN just developed their ISP so to speak.I'd be happy to chat... |
|
Connectivity | 3 months 1 week ago | |
When it comes to long-range communication in the jungle, it can be challenging due to the dense vegetation that can obstruct radio waves.... |
|
Acoustics, Connectivity | 3 months 1 week ago | |
I would recommend going with Ubiquity 2.4Ghz devices which have performed relatively well in dense foliage of the California Redwood forests. It took a lot of tweaking to... |
|
Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Open Source Solutions | 3 months 1 week ago | |
Will you accept personal/hobbyist focused on conservation on their small plots of land (10-100 acres)?I would, and know others, who would happily pay more than the official... |
|
Camera Traps, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 4 months 1 week ago | |
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... |
|
Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Protected Area Management Tools | 7 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... |
|
Citizen Science, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Conservation Tech Training and Education, East Africa Community, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 9 months 1 week ago | |
Hello all! Bluspark is a plateform that allows natural area managers such as natural parks or reserves to optimize their day to day... |
|
Citizen Science, Community Base, Connectivity, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Protected Area Management Tools, Software and Mobile Apps | 1 year 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... |
|
Camera Traps, Connectivity | 1 year 1 month 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... |
|
Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Data management and processing tools, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors | 1 year 2 months ago | |
Hi Steph. Would be interested also. |
|
Biologging, Community Base, Connectivity, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Remote Sensing & GIS | 1 year 4 months ago |
The Inventory User Guide
1 May 2024 12:46pm
Introducing The Inventory!
1 May 2024 12:46pm
1 May 2024 10:12pm
2 May 2024 3:08pm
Program Manager: Integrating movement and camera trap data with international conservation policy
22 April 2024 10:16pm
Postdoc: Biologging & Camera Trap Data Integration
22 April 2024 10:10pm
TagRanger: Redefining animal tracking iwth ad-hoc wireless networks and software-defined technology
17 April 2024 11:22am
Recording Orthoptera Sounds: International Workshop (Italy)
22 March 2024 9:25pm
Help us understand the use of ecological connectivity in conservation
20 March 2024 9:33am
If you are a conservation researcher or practitioner, help us understand the use of ecological connectivity through this survey. Your feedback will help to provide insights for the development of new tools and guidance that make connectivity and its assessment more accessible.
Young Futures - The Lonely Hearts Club Funding Challenge
13 March 2024 10:14am
Here's what you missed at World Wildlife Day 2024
7 March 2024 9:02pm
15 March 2024 2:42pm
Post-doc possition - Field spanning movement ecology, ecology of fear, bio-logging science, behavioral ecology, and ecological statistics
10 February 2024 7:20am
Bio-Logging Science Symposium
9 February 2024 3:59pm
Passionate engineer offering funding and tech solutions pro-bono.
23 January 2024 12:06pm
26 January 2024 3:18pm
Hi Krasi! Greetings from Brazil!
That's a cool journey you've started! Congratulations. And I felt like theSearchLife resonates with the work I'm involved round here. In a nutshell, I live at the heart of the largest remaining of Atlantic forest in the planet - one of the most biodiverse biomes that exist. The subregion where I live is named after and bathed by the "Rio Sagrado" (Sacred River), a magnificent water body with a very rich cultural significance to the region (it has served as a safe zone for fleeing slaves). Well, the river and the entire bioregion is currently under the threat of a truly devastating railroad project which, to say the least is planned to cut through over 100 water springs!
In face of that the local community (myself included) has been mobilizing to raise awareness of the issue and hopefully stop this madness (fueled by strong international forces). One of the ways we've been fighting this is through the seeking of the recognition of the sacred river as an entity of legal rights, who can manifest itself in court, against such threats. And to illustrate what this would look like, I've been developing this AI (LLM) powered avatar for the river, which could maybe serve as its human-relatable voice. An existing prototype of such avatar is available here. It has been fine-tuned with over 20 scientific papers on the Sacred River watershed.
And right now myself and other are mobilizing to manifest the conditions/resources to develop a next version of the avatar, which would include remote sensing capacities so the avatar is directly connected to the river and can possibly write full scientific reports on its physical properties (i.e. water quality) and the surrounding biodiversity. In fact, myself and 3 other members of the WildLabs community have just applied to the WildLabs Grant program in order to accomplish that. Hopefully the results are positive.
Finally, it's worth mentioning that our mobilization around providing an expression medium for the river has been multimodal, including the creation of a shortfilm based on theatrical mobilizations we did during a fest dedicated to the river and its surrounding more-than-human communities. You can check that out here:
Let's chat if any of that catches your interest!
Cheers!
2 February 2024 1:22pm
Hi Danilo. you seem very passionate about this initiative which is a good start.
It is an interesting coincidence that I am starting another project for the coral reefs in the Philipines which also requires water analytics so I can probably work on both projects at the same time.
Let's that have a call and discuss, will send you a pm with my contact details
There is a tech glitch and I don't get email notifications from here.
LoRaWAN IoT gateway, low power and solar cell driven
23 January 2024 7:44pm
24 January 2024 9:21am
Lorawan is a great tech for various applications. In essense, a lorawan gateway communicates with a provider endpoint to send through data that is receives. This can then be received by applications with subscriptions to that data over the Internet. Gateways can be had quite cheaply, Seeed Studios has one for around 100 euros. This is just adding a solar charge unit and there must be some sort of Internet communications, be it cell based or otherwise satellite I guess.
You should aware of all of the profiles of Lora and the constraints, it's intended for low bandwidth data. There are several modes of operation, Lora itself uses spread spectrum transmission with error correction. If you use a high degree of error correction you can transmit successfully longer distances, but with a longer period between allowable transmissins. For example, on spreading factor 12 (SF12) I think you may only transmit again 5 minutes or so later. With SF7, you have less power and less error correction and you can retransmit 5 seconds later.
So think it terms of small amounts of information to be transmitted. It's not a network replacement. The same also applies to zigbee or xbee pro, although they would be more suitable for larger amounts of data and can be used as I understand it as a sort of very, very low bandwidth meshed network. But lorawan is really for individual packets of data.
The Things Network has a lot of information regarding Lorawan in general that's well written I think.
The things network can also be used for free up to a certain number of nodes as a understand it.
25 January 2024 1:12am
Thanks for elaborating Kim! and for the link!
It seems that SenArch has competition, but it is beyond me to compare them.
25 January 2024 6:13am
I’ve used the things network before. It was developed in the Netherlands. The things network can be seen like an ISP. TTN just developed their ISP so to speak.
I'd be happy to chat with you over video to discuss your case and help you with whatever I know if you like.
Wireless communication for Jungle
23 January 2024 1:21pm
Monitoring setup in the forest based on the wifi with 2.4 GHz frequency.
30 December 2023 4:39pm
18 January 2024 8:17pm
Hi Dilip,
I do not have data about signal distortion in a forest area and with the signal you are intended to use.
However, in a savannah environment, when I put a tour on the highest point of the park, Lora signal (avg 900MHz) is less distorted than WiFi signal (2.4GHz). This is normal as a physics law: the frequency determines the wave length, and the less the length (obviously the less the frequency), the less obstructed the signal.
So, without interfering with your design, I would say that in a forest configuration, WiFi will need more access points deployed and may be more costly, and in your context, even when using LoRa, you will need more gateways than I have in a savannah.
To design the approximate number of gateways, you may need to use terrain Visibility analysis.
To design the cameras deployment, you will need to comply with the sampling methods defined in your research. However, if it is on for surveillance reasons, you may need to rely on terrain visibility analysis also.
Best regards.
22 January 2024 6:22pm
I've got quite a lot of experience with wireless in forested areas and over long(ish) ranges.
Using a wifi mesh is totally possible, and it will work. You will likely not get great range between units. You will likely need to have your mesh be fairly adaptable as conditions change.
Wireless and forests interact in somewhat unpredictable ways it turns out. Generally, wireless is attenuated by water in the line-of-sight between stations. From the Wifi perspective, a tree is just a lot of water up in the air. Denser forest = more water = worse communications. LoRa @ 900Mhz is less prone to this issue than Wifi @ 2.4Ghz and way less prone than Wifi @ 5Ghz. But LoRa is also fairly low data rate. Streaming video via LoRa is possible with a lot of work, but video streaming is not at all what LoRa was build to do, and it does it quite poorly at best.
The real issue I see here is to do with power levels. CCTV, audio streaming, etc are high data rate activities. You may need quite a lot of power to run these systems effectively both for the initial data collection and then for the communications.
If you are planning to run mains power to each of these units, you may be better off running an ethernet cable as well. Alternatively, you can run "power line" networking, which has remarkably good bandwidth and gets you back down to a single twisted pair for power and communications.
If you are planning to run off batteries and/or solar, you may need a somewhat large power system to support your application?
23 January 2024 1:19am
I would recommend going with Ubiquity 2.4Ghz devices which have performed relatively well in dense foliage of the California Redwood forests. It took a lot of tweaking to find paths through the dense tree cover as mentioned in the previous posts.
Ignite Labs: Space for Nature & Biodiversity Series
21 January 2024 2:46pm
Apply to Beta test Instant Detect 2.0
11 May 2023 10:55am
21 December 2023 3:48am
Will you accept personal/hobbyist focused on conservation on their small plots of land (10-100 acres)?
I would, and know others, who would happily pay more than the official conservationists rate for the service, which could help to further subsidize the project. (Referring to your statement here: https://wildlabs.net/discussion/instant-detect-20-and-related-cost)
Data Viz Inspo for the Holidays
11 December 2023 8:42pm
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
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
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
1 May 2024 9:26pm