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)
GIS & Remote sensing technical specialist at Fauna & Flora
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- @roboticscats
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Founder & CEO of RoboticsCats, a machine vision startup. Our AI wildfire detection SaaS is protecting forests & communities in Asia, Europe & LATAM.
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- @Edonga
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Paul Edonga is from the Indigenous Pastoralist Tribes of Northern Kenya. A seasoned Leader in indigenous-led conservation of Endangered Beisa Oryx, African Small Antelopes their habitats & Dryland Forests. He's the founder of Save Beisa Oryx Community Resilience Trust-SBOC
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- @PshemekZ
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IT + nature
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- @donovantye
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Savanna Ecologist, Field Station Director and Head of Conservation Tech Projects for Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS).
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Xerius Tracking
Concerned by wildlife protection and advanced technologies
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- @DanielHugelmann
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Hi, I'm the co-founder of OceanLabs Seychelles. We design and build environmental and marine remote sensing devices for conservation NGOs. As an engineer and avid diver, with a love for the environment, connecting conservation and technology was the natural thing to do!
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- @SamuelHertz
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I'm a PhD researcher at Royal Holloway University of London (Centre for GeoHumanities) researching modalities of sound-sensing technologies across climate and conservation sciences. Interested in ethics and histories of acoustic monitoring as well as new visualization methods.
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- @tkswanson
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San Diego Zoo Global
Research Coordinator II for the Conservation Technology Lab at SDZWA
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- @garthpaine
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Arizona State University
Garth Paine (https://www.activatedspace.com/ ) is acoustic ecologist, composer, sound artist, and academic (ASU) based in USA/Australia. He is known for his pioneering work on species density metrics from ambient recordings and his anti-poaching efforts
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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
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
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An update on Ceres Tags products that are being used in conservation
22 August 2022
July 2024
event
February 2024
December 2023
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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... |
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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 | 1 month 3 weeks 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... |
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Connectivity | 2 months 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.... |
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Acoustics, Connectivity | 2 months 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... |
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Acoustics, AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Open Source Solutions | 2 months 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... |
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Camera Traps, Climate Change, Community Base, Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Sensors, Wildlife Crime | 3 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... |
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Connectivity, Emerging Tech, Protected Area Management Tools | 6 months 1 week 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 | 8 months 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 | 11 months 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 | 1 year 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 | 1 year 1 month 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 | 1 year 3 months 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 5 months ago |
Commercially available connected audio sensors
2 February 2023 3:08pm
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
Join Seeed’s “IoT Into the Wild Contest for Sustainable Planet 2022” on Hackster to Get 100 Free Hardware and to Win $14,000+ in Prizes!!
14 June 2022 11:04am
Join Seeed’s “IoT Into the Wild Contest for Sustainable Planet 2022” on Hackster to Get 100 Free Hardware and to Win $14,000+ in Prizes!!!
14 June 2022 9:14am
Video: Delivering edge computing on Robinson Crusoe Island (Chile) to preserve biodiversity
13 June 2022 2:08pm
Remote trap sensing communications
7 November 2020 1:43pm
18 December 2020 6:22pm
Hi,
Let me know if you want any help with solar application for this. I use small remote cameras in the field with 18650 batteries from used laptops and solar cells. The solar panels are pretty cheap, about $15 ordered from amazon. And the charge controllers are about $3 each. The solar setups work well on a mesh setup that I have here but I think as suggested that lora might be the best way to go.
17 January 2021 3:14pm
Hi Mark,
This is very interesting. HF transmitters can be very simple and low power, but I would be concerned about their long fragile antennas. I'd contact a local ham club with old people who still do CW over QRP.
You could also look into sigfox. It may be possible to convince the nature reserve or park to install a sigfox network specifically for their own use. But I don't know how much it would cost.
Thanks,
-harold
19 April 2022 5:59pm
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 received by Argos satellites. To prolong your battery life, I'd recommend looking into adding a solar panel to your system.
Technical Difficulties: Can You Hear Me Now?
19 October 2021 12:00am
Tech Tutors: How do I use satellite IoT to track wildlife & monitor remote equipment?
8 September 2021 10:32pm
29 September 2021 7:42pm
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 (impressive)!!
Very informative! ...and happy to see all of the amazing work being done in this space.
Arm technologies: What do you use?
10 February 2021 9:07pm
11 February 2021 3:45am
Hi Ellie.
This isn't necessarily wildlife but Jacinta and I used the CC1310 wireless chip with the ARM Cortex M3 inside for a project with the International Rice Research Institute. It was to test precision irrigation on rice crops for dry planting and to remove the need for the traditional flood based planting systems. This allows rice to grow in arid regions that traditionally can't support rice as a staple crop. Water scarcity is also a worry for the institute due to global warming, hence focusing on growing rice in low-water environments. There's more information on it here.
For those interested, the CC1310 uses 900 MHz and supports the IEEE 802.15.4 standard. It's one of the standard chips used in the SigFox protocol, although we mainly just used it for communications and not for SigFox implementation. We also implemented a gateway device that collected data from the networked rice paddies and sent water level data to the government server via GSM using SMS. We typically use HTTP but in the Philippines, cellular internet isn't as reliable as SMS, especially in rural areas. Both boards are based on the ARM Cortex M3.
I've attached pics of the wireless sensor boards and gateway we developed for this project as well.
Akiba
1 March 2021 12:33am
I've been tinkering with NVidia Jetson boards for about 2 years now. This is basically a small ARM computer, comes with an Ubuntu image but could run any linux I think. It's basically a mini computer with an Nvidia GPU, so you can do all sorts of things at 'the edge'.
I have been (on and off) building a bird feeder camera that would id birds and send just the text not images. Ultimately I would like to build a smart camera trap that would id animals and conserve bandwith by just uploading the data.
I started with the Jetson Nano, about 100 USD but when I started it was difficult to do things due to ARM.
Now I am working with a Jetson NX, about 500 USD and things are way easier. Visual Studio Code runs there natively, as do many python libraries and there are even a lot of containers ready made now.
Also, AWS has Graviton instances now - an EC2 ARM computer. One of my plans is to use AWS for building, testing, etc. and now ARM is an option there too.
12 March 2021 7:08pm
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. What were the main issues with the Nano? Is it mainly the build process (speed and memory)? The NX uses very similar CPU cores (but 6 instead of 4), bigger/faster DRAM (8GB vs 4GB) and much faster GPU (especially if you are using INT8 instead of FLOAT32). I'm also playing around with Raspberry Pi and a hardware accelerator.
The Arm-based EC2 instances on AWS should be a great help in compilation!
Full disclosure: I work for Arm, but developing on these platforms is not part of my role there. This is purely a passion project!
Ed
Tech Tutors: How do I get started with LoRa? Connectivity in conservation
11 February 2021 2:59pm
12 February 2021 7:31pm
Thank you, Sean.
Google has found the LoRa - equipped cheetahs, and I will follow that up.
14 February 2021 7:55am
Hi all, good to see more interest for LoRaWAN in conservation. Smart Parks is a not-for-profit organisation that has been promoting, building and supporting LoRaWAN solutions for conservation for at least 6 years now. Part of this is our OpenCollar innitiative, to develop and share an open-source animal tracking solution. Many of you have already supported this innitiative, and the movement is growing fast! We have come very far with the most advanced trackers and collars of all sizes (rhino, pangolin, cheetah, lion, wisent, elephant). A great example is our recent ElephantEdge campaign with Hackster.io. We are are providing this technology as affordable as we can so more wildlife can be protected. Check us out at: www.smartparks.org and www.opencollar.io
14 February 2021 8:04am
That's us (www.smartparks.org) Peter. Happy to help.
How do I get started with LoRa? Connectivity in conservation
1 February 2021 12:00am
Making the Most of Tech Tutors Season 2!
30 November 2020 12:00am
Sharing GSMA's Report on Digital Tech in Natural Resource Management
25 June 2020 8:59am
Talking Tracking with Xerius
23 April 2020 12:00am
Connecting to MBARI's Deep-Sea Instruments
31 March 2020 12:00am
Loon's internet balloons will be deployed in Kenya's skies from 2019
25 July 2018 3:09pm
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,