Powerful conservation tech tools are gathering more data in the field than ever before. But without equally powerful and effective data management and processing tools, that data - no matter how groundbreaking or interesting - will not be able to reach its full potential for impact.
Data management can sometimes seem intimidating to conservationists, especially those just getting started in the world of conservation tech or experimenting with new data collection methods. While every community member's workflow and preferred data management and processing methods may be different, this group can serve as a resource to explore what works for others, share your own advice, and develop new strategies together.
Below are a few WILDLABS events dealing with datasets collected from various conservation tech tools:
Nicole Flores: How do I get started with Wildlife Insights?
Jamie Macaulay: How do I analyse large acoustic datasets using PAMGuard?
Sarah Davidson: Tools for Bio-logging Data in Conservation
Whatever conservation tech tools you work with, and whatever your preferred data management methods, we hope you'll find something helpful and effective in this group when you become a member!
Certified Associate Wildlife Biologist
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- 3 Discussions
- 7 Groups
I am a Geo-ecologist, who loves to use GIS, remote sensing, citizen science and knowledge transfer to shape for a better future for nature - We are part of nature, so let's act like it!
- 1 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 4 Groups
I am a GIS Analyst currently working at Center for Ecosystem Restoration Kenya, a non-profit whose vision is to restore resilient and thriving ecosystems. I have a Bachelor's degree in Geoinformation Technology and I am looking to explore applications of GIS in Conservation.
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- 0 Discussions
- 8 Groups
Recent data science graduate from the University of New England in Maine, USA. Looking to enter the field of data science with a focus on environmental and social issues.
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- 4 Groups
I'm a marine biologist working at Local Ocean Conservation as a marine research and data manager. I love exploring the wonders of the underwater world and learning about the amazing creatures that live there. I'm passionate about protecting our oceans and raising awareness.
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- 11 Groups
I am a master's student currently working on acoustic monitoring of an Endangered frog species in South Africa.
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- 7 Groups
A wildlife biologist currently engaging in counter wildlife trafficking through tracking wildlife crime cases in Kenya - Tsavo. An elephant lover, passionate about empowering people and a tech enthusiast!
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- 0 Discussions
- 4 Groups
I'm a GIS and Remote Sensing specialist with a focus on conservation, currently working as a Visual Data Scientist. I'm passionate about leveraging AI tools to enhance conservation and environmental management efforts.
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- 6 Groups
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Remote Sensing Scientist
- 1 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 6 Groups
Background in Computer Science, Developing Acoustic AI Tech at Synature
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- 4 Groups
Software developer here to learn how technology can help conservation
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- 6 Groups
The Future Forest Company (FFC) team are looking for an enthusiastic, early career data and GIS administrator to join them. The role will manage spatial and operational data, with a particular focus on carbon from...
31 May 2023
1
Careers
We are a team of ecologists and technologists who believe good business must be good for nature. We’re building an economy that puts nature and business in balance by incentivising the restoration of nature at scale.
16 May 2023
2
Climate Watch offers open data, visualizations and analysis to help policymakers, researchers and other stakeholders gather insights on countries' climate progress.
12 May 2023
In our first Conservation Tech Showcase case study, you'll learn about the innovative PantheraIDS, an open-source data management platform and analytical engine that processes, standardizes, and manages conservation-...
11 May 2023
1
Careers
We are a team of ecologists and technologists who believe good business must be good for nature. We’re building an economy that puts nature and business in balance by incentivising the restoration of nature at scale.
28 April 2023
Global Fishing Watch are looking for a data scientist to join the Research and Innovation team. Help us tackle geospatial data fusion problems to produce the most complete picture of human activity at sea.
19 April 2023
How to use geospatial data for rapid analyses of forest carbon projects
5 April 2023
How environmental consultancy Eticwood use geospatial data for rapid forest carbon project assessments
24 March 2023
When do you use a bar chart over a line chart? What are area charts good for? What's wrong with pie charts? Learn about how these different types of data visualization work, and how they're used, in Observable's first...
21 March 2023
The Innovation in Practice edition of Methods in Ecology and Evolution is still seeking proposals about conservation technology
6 March 2023
1
Article
Rainforest Connection (RFCx) is bringing back the Arbimon newsletter for 2023! We're excited to share new features and tools of the platform, what's coming up, and some insights into our projects on bioacoustic...
23 February 2023
3
Careers
M&E organizational data management consultant needed
Ruben Foquet
WeForest is looking for a consultant(s) to identify the best tool(s) and/or program(s) to standardize M&E data collection and management across all our Forest Landscape Restoration projects, globally. Will you...
21 February 2023
1
July 2023
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Thank you very much! |
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Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools | 1 day 2 hours ago | |
I think it's best to look at it as analogous to the GDPR. One of the main reasons for the existence of GDPR is to protect individuals' fundamental rights and freedoms,... |
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Data management and processing tools | 2 weeks 3 days ago | |
The Wildlife Insights team is running a survey to learn more about camera trap data management practices, and in particular to understand... |
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Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools | 1 month ago | |
GeoNadir and OpenDroneMap might be of interest for drones?The Conservation Tech Directory might have some additional projects/tools of note. |
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Data management and processing tools, Drones | 1 month 2 weeks ago | |
Hi Kate- ARISTA Lab (Advanced Research in Inclusion & STEAM Accessibility) is actively working on this through their eclispse soundscape project. I recommend reaching out to... |
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Acoustic Monitoring, Data management and processing tools | 1 month 4 weeks ago | |
Yes please reach out with any questions on acoustic monitoring, Arbimon, RFCx, etc.! |
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Acoustic Monitoring, AI for Conservation, Data management and processing tools | 2 months ago | |
Thank you so much for your reply! I'll look in to this now :) |
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Acoustic Monitoring, Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects, Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools, Drones, Remote Sensing & GIS, Software and Mobile Apps | 2 months 1 week ago | |
Hi Andrea! Although I am a keen user and observer of the Moveapps initiative, my R or Python coding skills are next to non- existing. I am therefore not likely to be contributing... |
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Biologging, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Emerging Tech, Human-Wildlife Conflict, Open Source Solutions, Software and Mobile Apps | 3 months ago | |
We have made available our underwater videos on YouTube as a playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnhVZKKy8WkZKriCIV6r7upWhHNVrU_7L It's about 1.113 short video... |
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AI for Conservation, Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools, Marine Conservation | 3 months 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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Acoustic Monitoring, AI for Conservation, Connectivity, Data management and processing tools, Protected Area Management Tools, Sensors | 4 months ago | |
My original background is in ecology and conservation, and am now in the elected leadership of the Gathering for Open Science Hardware which convenes researchers developing open... |
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AI for Conservation, Biologging, Camera Traps, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Drones, Emerging Tech, Sensors | 4 months 2 weeks ago | |
Hi everyone, I seek your help for the choice of my thesis subject, I hold a Master's degree in Management of protected areas and I have... |
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Camera Traps, Data management and processing tools, Protected Area Management Tools, Remote Sensing & GIS | 4 months 3 weeks ago |
Camera Trap Data Normalization Help
31 May 2023 2:45pm
3 June 2023 2:11am
I would second this approach and possibly extend this to an abundance "N-mixture" model. Each 15 min image could be considered a 'visit' and covariates such as tide and weather used to describe detectability, while habitat covariates describe the 'haul out sites'.
There are several assumptions to meet about independence that should be considered and additional analyses that can account for spatial autocorrelation.
A good read is the documentation and vignettes for the R package 'Unmarked'. If you want a deeper understanding the two volumes of 'Applied Hierarchical Modeling in Ecology' by Kery and Royle will answer all your questions. There is also a google group for Unmarked with plenty of helpful contributors if you need help
5 June 2023 1:10pm
Thank you very much!
Imageomics Institute Image Datapalooza, August 2023
2 June 2023 11:44pm
Natural Capital GIS & Data Administrator
31 May 2023 3:55pm
Using Average speed trapping to mitigate Wildlife Vehicle Collisions
28 October 2022 11:40am
7 May 2023 11:50am
We are at a PROOF OF CONCEPT with raspberry pi and python and are hoping this can be taken forward. See link below.
19 May 2023 1:36pm
Can you elaborate as to the ethical concerns with using license plate information? License plate information doesn't need to be stored for long durations with Gregory's proposed system - only for as long as it takes the vehicle to reach the second camera.
20 May 2023 11:20am
I think it's best to look at it as analogous to the GDPR. One of the main reasons for the existence of GDPR is to protect individuals' fundamental rights and freedoms, particularly their right to protection of their personal data. Capturing personal, identifying information online without consent would be a violation of GDPR. I think the right to protect personal data extends to the physical world as well, which is where capturing identifying information like license plates without consent would fall.
How do I get started with collecting mobile digital data to combat Illegal Wildlife Trade?
16 May 2023 11:59pm
Field Surveyor
16 May 2023 4:06pm
Climate Watch: The Past, Present and Potential Futures of Climate
12 May 2023 4:14pm
Panthera: Monitoring Wildlife with Open-Source Data Management Tools

11 May 2023 5:52pm
Camera Trap Data Management Survey
3 May 2023 10:28pm
Data Engineer (Remote)
28 April 2023 8:06pm
EarthRanger User Conference
27 April 2023 5:52am
Feathered forecast: Tech tools comb weather data for bird migrations
26 April 2023 2:50pm
Since its launch in 1999, the BirdCast project has used weather radar data to track and forecast bird migrations across the U.S. In recent years, technology such as cloud computing and machine learning have helped make the work of researchers in the project easier and more automated. The BirdCast project is now working on integrating radar data with human observations and bioacoustics to help identify the bird species traversing the skies.
Anti-poaching tech vulnerable to cyber attacks, study finds | ITWeb
26 April 2023 2:48pm
While tech deployment has often been hailed for playing a critical role in the fight against poaching, these technologies bring with them the risk of cyber attacks. This is based on a study conducted by Orange Cyberdefense Academy’s Christelle Steyn, as part of her thesis titled: “Towards a Critical Review of Cybersecurity Risks in Anti-Poaching Systems in South Africa”.
Drone imagery management software
17 April 2023 2:17am
21 April 2023 2:41pm
GeoNadir and OpenDroneMap might be of interest for drones?
The Conservation Tech Directory might have some additional projects/tools of note.
Rapid due diligence for forest carbon projects
21 April 2023 10:51am
Data Scientist (Geospatial), Global Fishing Watch

19 April 2023 10:34am
Data Management and Analysis using Stata Training
17 April 2023 10:48am
How do I get started with Bird Audio processing and classification?
17 April 2023 9:11am
Accessible acoustic analysis tech for blind scientist - ideas?
31 March 2023 10:52pm
6 April 2023 10:49pm
Hey Kate I don't have any explicit ideas at the moment but will think on it - such a cool concept! I wonder if there's some form of tactile spectrogram that you could develop, or a way that you could have them try to draw a representation (so assign some shape) of what they are hearing as a means of classification a call and then clustering those shapes? There's a way of creating an image using foam and paper I believe so they could have a tactile record of those shapes. Guess it depends what you want to the quantitative results to be. Super cool that you are looking for greater accessibility in acoustics!!!
7 April 2023 1:40am
Hi Kate,
We've developed a screen-reader workflow for a classification problem on our "Ocean Voices" Zooniverse project, which simply asks folks to label sounds based on what they hear and omits the spectrogram altogether. There are lots of screen-reader users who are active in the Zooniverse Talk forums, so they may have valuable input for you as well.
Once a person has labeled data, I wonder if they could run automated detectors over the data in Pamguard, calculate features (using something like the R package PAMpal), and then use the BrailleR package to explore the statistics in R. This article has a pretty interesting summary about statistical software for visually impaired folks - might not be news to your student, but I thought it was pretty cool.
I'm very curious what our friends who are visually impaired might notice in the acoustic data. Best of luck to you and your student!
Cheers,
Anne
7 April 2023 5:11pm
Hi Kate- ARISTA Lab (Advanced Research in Inclusion & STEAM Accessibility) is actively working on this through their eclispse soundscape project. I recommend reaching out to MaryKay to get the latest on their project.
Megan
Due diligence for Nature Based Solutions
5 April 2023 3:38pm
Updates about Arbimon for Ecoacoustics - free, cloud based analytical tool
31 March 2023 11:09am
31 March 2023 3:43pm
Yes please reach out with any questions on acoustic monitoring, Arbimon, RFCx, etc.!
Exploring storage options for mass data collection
22 March 2023 3:20am
22 March 2023 7:36pm
Hi Adam!
I mostly live within the ecoacoustics space so I'll just speak on the hydrophone part of your request; Arbimon is a free web/cloud-based platform with unlimited storage for audio files. We've got an uploader app as well for mass-uploading lots of files. There's also a bunch of spectrogram visualization/annotation tools and analysis workflows available. It's AWS running under the hood.
I have some experience working directly with AWS & Microsoft Azure, and I've found personally that AWS was more user-friendly and intuitive for the (fairly simplistic) kinds of tasks I've done.
27 March 2023 5:23am
Meeting customer deadlines, without having to hire more staff
24 March 2023 4:02pm
Data Visualization Fundamentals and Best Practices Course
21 March 2023 5:16pm
Global Biodiversity Data & Analytics Virtual Roundtable
8 March 2023 8:39am
Proposals wanted for Innovation in Practice

6 March 2023 10:34pm
Moveapps: EMAC23 Coding Challenge
3 March 2023 7:58am
3 March 2023 3:12pm
Super initiative! I hope you get a lot of entries to this coding challenge!
6 March 2023 7:53am
Thanks Lars! Look forward to any entries from you and your colleagues. If you have an questions or suggestions, let me know.
6 March 2023 1:11pm
Hi Andrea! Although I am a keen user and observer of the Moveapps initiative, my R or Python coding skills are next to non- existing. I am therefore not likely to be contributing this time... Some day perhaps ;)
The WILDLABS Variety Hour: February 2023 - YouTube
3 March 2023 11:24am
Last week's Variety Hour is now up on youtube. It was a great session - we covered Moveapps, an awesome community project building marine biologgers, chatgpt and google earth engine vs microsoft's planetary computer. Thanks everyone who came along!
Moveapps EMAC23 Coding Challenge – Participate now!
3 March 2023 7:45am
Underwater Fish Datasets from the Mediterranean
15 August 2022 11:45pm
26 September 2022 9:32pm
Not sure if audio data would be of any use to you, but if so FishSounds has some - I just tried their search function and there is a location tag for 'Mediterranean & Black Sea'.
You might try reaching out to the folks at Name that Fish, Innovasea, or perhaps an entity on the Fisheries Tech list would have Mediterranean stuff?
21 October 2022 7:52am
Hi,
If this is still relevant, you can try reaching out to the Belmaker lab, they do BRUV surveys in the eastern Mediterranean and have hours of video, some of it I believe is annotated. Particularly, Shahar might be helpful, he's the PhD student running point on the project.
2 March 2023 2:03pm
We have made available our underwater videos on YouTube as a playlist https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLnhVZKKy8WkZKriCIV6r7upWhHNVrU_7L
It's about 1.113 short video clips with annotation and each is linked to the corresponding www.iNaturalist.org observations. The iNaturalist.org observations are research quality and have been uploaded to GBIF.org. The observations have been made between 2014 and 2022 around the Ionian Islands (Greece).
If you would need the original videos please contact me.

2 June 2023 9:15pm
I have not looked into that. Thank you so much!