With experts across the WILDLABS community working with every type of technology and in every imaginable environment, our platform is a great place to find advice and resources on choosing what tools are right for your conservation project. Whether you're in the market to try a new camera trap model, want to experiment with drones for the first time, or need help weighing the pros and cons of data management tools, there's someone in the WILDLABS community who can help you make a smart and informed choice!
The Community Base is our general gathering group. It's the place where we cover more general, big picture topics in conservation technology - ones that don't fit neatly into our other groups. If you don't know where to post something, just post it in this group. Our moderators will move it if needed!
At our Community Base, you'll find updates from the WILDLABS team on upcoming events and opportunities, and have the chance to shape our programs and platform with your opinions. And most importantly, the Community Base is also home to our Welcome to WILDLABS thread, the best place to introduce yourself to us and the community. Stop by and tell us what you're working on!
Whether you're new to WILDLABS and want to know where to begin, or you're a longtime member looking for a handy bank of resources, our Getting Started on WILDLABS thread will be your one-stop guide to getting the most out of our platform.
Want to find out more about WILDLABS? Check out our recent community call:
Header image: Ana Verahrami/Elephant Listening Project
Group curators
- @StephODonnell
- | She / Her
WILDLABS & Fauna & Flora
I'm the Executive Manager at WILDLABS.
- 152 Resources
- 665 Discussions
- 30 Groups
- @TaliaSpeaker
- | She/her
WILDLABS & World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)
I'm the WILDLABS Research Specialist at WWF-US
- 13 Resources
- 56 Discussions
- 24 Groups
- @EllieW
- | She/Her
- 64 Resources
- 124 Discussions
- 14 Groups
- @Sarvagya
- | He/Him
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 7 Groups
- @leonardoscarpa
- | He/His
I'm Leonardo, I'm a biologist, and I'm passionate about movement ecology. Another of my hobbies is GIS. I have a master's degree in this topic, which I complement with the use of technology such as drones, camera traps and acoustic receivers
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 10 Groups
Software engineer
- 0 Resources
- 3 Discussions
- 3 Groups
- @womble
- | he/him
AI Researcher, mostly NLP, with 30+ years experience. Recently consulted for a company ding drone image analysis and Google Cloud
- 0 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @Thomas_Luypaert
- | He/him
Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)
Ecological monitoring enthusiast with a focus on ecological and conservation research
- 1 Resources
- 1 Discussions
- 7 Groups
Technologist and Visual storyteller focusing on social, conservations issues.
- 0 Resources
- 31 Discussions
- 16 Groups
- @Hansa
- | He/Him
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- 2 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 2 Groups
Heading up comms for a conservation agency based in the United Arab Emirates
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
- @Edonga
- | He/His
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
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 6 Groups
Purdue University
- 8 Resources
- 48 Discussions
- 5 Groups
- @Angele
- | She/Her
Working with IPLCs and applying data/geospatial tools for a conservation/carbon forestry project in the Philippines 🌿
- 0 Resources
- 0 Discussions
- 8 Groups
Are you passionate about marine wildlife conservation? Excited to network and collaborate with fellow enthusiasts? Join us in launching the Coastal and Marine Wildlife Working Group within The Wildlife Society!
23 May 2024
Save Our Seas (SOS) opened a call for small grants for 'original and innovative start-up projects' concerning marine chondrichthyan species (sharks, rays, skates, sawfishes and chimaeras). Projects can be in research,...
19 May 2024
Funding
The UK government's 'Reversing Environmental Degradation in Africa and Asia' program opened a call for applications for "locally led, multi-locational, research-to-action for restoration programmes".
19 May 2024
Do you have photos and videos of your conservation tech work? We want to include them in a conservation technology showcase video
17 May 2024
The Biodiversity Finance Initiative ( BIOFIN, a UNDP initiative ) launched a database with over 330 public and private funding opportunities.
4 May 2024
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
Technology to End the Sixth Mass Extinction. Salary: $132 - $160k; Location: Seattle WA; 7+ years of experience in hardware product development and manufacturing; View post for full job description
1 May 2024
Tap into our new and exciting community-focused conversation series! In this first season of InConversation, we're in East Africa with host Esther Githinji. Listen in as we chat one-on-one with your favourite...
30 April 2024
Article
What better way to conclude InConversation Season 1: East Africa than by delving into the exciting yet complex world of #tech4wildlife innovation across the region. This episode is going to be double the insight and...
30 April 2024
The North Carolina Zoo seeks a dynamic, motivated and progressive individual to serve as the Associate Curator of International Conservation within the zoos’ Conservation, Education and Science (CES) program. The...
29 April 2024
It has been an extraordinary year supporting and growing the regional East African Conservation Technology Community at WILDLABS. We've made great strides and unlocked exciting opportunities for our community as we...
29 April 2024
June 2024
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October 2024
July 2023
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Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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Hi @emmahiggins , sounds like a great plan. Could you tell more about the content of the program, and perhaps the institutional context (which department(s) is(are)... |
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Build Your Own Data Logger Community, AI for Conservation, Autonomous Camera Traps for Insects, Biologging, Camera Traps, Citizen Science, Climate Change, Acoustics, Community Base, Connectivity, Conservation Dogs, Conservation Tech Training and Education, Data management and processing tools, Drones, Early Career, Earth Observation 101 Community, East Africa Community, eDNA & Genomics, Emerging Tech, Ending Wildlife Trafficking Online, Ethics of Conservation Tech, Footprint Identification Technique (FIT), Human-Wildlife Conflict, Marine Conservation, Open Source Solutions, Protected Area Management Tools, Remote Sensing & GIS, Sensors, Software and Mobile Apps, Sustainable Fishing Challenges, Wildlife Crime, Women in Conservation Tech Programme (WiCT) | 2 days 8 hours ago | |
Hi. We're FreakLabs, a conservation technology company based in Japan and Australia. For Japan, we have our manufacturing facilities in Chiba prefecture on the Boso Peninsula. We'... |
+251
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Community Base | 3 days 8 hours ago | |
A practice-based research project: I am carrying out a qualitative research project to better understand the... |
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Community Base | 4 days 2 hours ago | |
We'll be presenting Wednesday morning as part of session 10.1b on "Integrating earth observations and biological tools in ecology and evolution to cogenerate knowledge towards... |
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Community Base, Biologging | 5 days 18 hours ago | |
I noticed the site being annoyingly slow some time last week. Thank you for clearing that up, for finding the cause and solving the issue.I'm not claiming deep knowledge on AI,... |
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Community Base | 3 weeks 5 days ago | |
Hello Ms Esther👋Thank you for taking your time to reply to me with such helpful response.I'm interested in conservation technology such as camera traps, GIS and Remote sensing,... |
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Early Career, East Africa Community, Community Base | 1 month ago | |
Hi Soumya , Interested to know if you are pursuing distance education in ML while at your current job. I would love to hear more about your journey on course specifics... |
+12
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Community Base, Early Career | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Totally agree.Inititally sceptical until I saw Helena and Graeme were involved.MJ |
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Acoustics, Citizen Science, Community Base, Human-Wildlife Conflict | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Hi @Frank_van_der_Most,great point and I will address this in my little talk next week.Greetings from Austria,Robin |
+11
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Community Base | 1 month 1 week ago | |
I got assistance. super grateful! |
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Climate Change, Community Base, East Africa Community, Conservation Tech Training and Education | 1 month 1 week ago | |
Awesome, thanks for the summary! |
+8
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Protected Area Management Tools, Community Base | 2 months ago | |
@Rob_Appleby follow these instructions to get your Sprout badge! |
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Community Base | 2 months 1 week ago |
WILDLABS Journal Club
15 September 2022 11:42am
15 September 2022 3:49pm
I have been waiting for journal club to come back!! 10000% down.
I agree with @StephODonnell, would love it to come back!!! And now that variety hour is happening, that's more of the "mix of things" that she mentioned anyways so I think that new format would be great.
Closing soon: WILDLABS State of Conservation Tech Survey 2022
14 September 2022 12:42am
#Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge Countdown
8 September 2022 11:03pm
Join the #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge!
8 September 2022 10:21pm
Starting today: Join the 7th annual #Tech4Wildlife Photo Challenge!
6 September 2022 10:06am
7 September 2022 8:37pm
Survey for Doctoral Research on Poaching in Protected Areas
29 August 2022 10:43pm
Catch Up with the WILDLABS Variety Hour: August 2022
10 August 2022 11:44am
Survey: The role and applicability of block-chain technology in conservation survey
3 August 2022 3:28pm
Any results coming out of this survey that you would like to share?
What are your biggest sustainability challenges and issues in your work?
27 June 2022 4:18pm
29 June 2022 12:39am
Hey all!
I mentioned that on Friday, we'd update this post with all the sustainability conversations happening across our platform, but I wanted to flag this great Twitter thread right now in case anyone wants to jump in! Lots of interesting conversation about challenges with transporting batteries to field sites on planes and using rechargeable batteries in the comments.
Check it out here:
7 July 2022 12:19pm
Hi David,
Yes and no. A lot of organizations have realized that we also need to talk about co-benefits in such projects, especially when it comes to biodiversity. So, it's definitely not only about carbon anymore. however, most players struggle on how to measure and communicate biodiversity impacts. At WWF, we partnered for instance with Restor, who is trying to incorporating biodiversity
1 August 2022 5:57pm
During a volunteer project, I ran into some stupefying experiences with camera traps, one of those 'corner stones', it seems, of nature conservation research.
Everybody who works with camera traps knows it, but it was new to me, and I think it can't hurt to point out the glaringly obvious here:
They consume no less than 8 AA batteries per run. I've seen a project description boasting the use of 200 camera traps if I remember correctly. That is 1600 batteries and I sure hope they are able to retrieve every single one of them.
Secondly, the manual of the camera trap that I had purchased explicitly discouraged the use of rechargeable batteries. I tried it anyways and indeed, the camera seems to run shorter on them. Tip to myself for next time : download and read the manual first before purchasing.
Thirdly, in the country where I did the volunteer project it was completely unclear if there was a battery recycling system in place. It seemed to depend on the town and private initiative. The question now is to which extent camera traps for nature conservation are used in countries with a proper recycling system?
Fourthly, the project had a couple of camera traps that 'didn't work'. A few of these just needed some spraying with contact spray helped ( a whole different topic, but what is the environmental impact of contact spray? Does that weigh up to replacing the electronics? ). A few others seemed to suffer from the same problem. They contain a button cell that seems to power the clock and perhaps some other functions when the AA batteries are lacking. This button cell had gone bad, that is, rusted away. In the traps that I checked, the button cell was soldered to the electronics board. I had no means to replace them, so I do not know for sure that the faulty cell was the source of the problem. This really is a disclaimer, the camera traps seemed pretty old, and other things might caused the malfunction.
I found only one online source about these button cells in camera traps. It is listed below.
At least it indicates that this happens more often and that the cell is probably not rechargeable. If so, I find it a major design flaw. Would it not be better to make the button cells replaceable and /or rechargeable? Or do without them completely?
See
Get to Know WILDBEAR Awardee Alyssa Bohart
27 July 2022 10:12pm
Equipment Swap Meet/Giveaways
17 April 2019 2:28pm
25 October 2019 9:43pm
Hi Carl,
No problem and happy to go with the name you are most comfortable with. Looking forward to saying hi at the virtual meetup!
Cheers,
Rob
1 July 2022 7:48pm
Hi all!
Just wanted to drop in and share that we're having a lot of discussions around sustainability right now, and we're thinking about how the conservation tech community can recycle old tools in sustainable ways. Swaps and exchanges feel like they fit perfectly into that conversation!
If any of you would like to drop into this discussion thread on practical steps toward sustainability and share your experiences with swapping tools, we'd love to hear from you!
26 July 2022 6:40pm
Hi all doing some spring cleaning. Just pay shipping.
I have:
-20 new Taoglas FXUB63 Ultra Wide Band Antenna 698-3000MHz we don't need. The ones that come with Boron's.
-90 Phoenix Contact TERM BLK 4P SIDE ENT 5.08MM PCB
-45 Omron RELAY GEN PURPOSE SPST 10A 12V, G5LE-1A DC12
We have so much stuff we'll never use. Will post more as I sort through it. If you need something in particular let me know. Might get lucky.
If by chance someone knows where I could find some ATSAMD21G18A-MFT or similar let me know!
Introducing WILDBEAR Awardee Alyssa Bohart
22 July 2022 12:27am
Tech Tutors East Africa: Call for Topics and Speakers
19 July 2022 9:28am
19 July 2022 11:41am
Definitely second doing one on SMART! It's been asked about before a number of times in other virtual events so I think the need/want is for sure there.
19 July 2022 12:20pm
100%! Also heard many asking about SMART Connect & Mobile, and their integration with other software.
Thank you for your input :)
Call for Abstracts for #AGU22 Fall Meeting: Applications of Earth Observations for Addressing Environmental and Development Challenges in Africa
18 July 2022 6:43am
Conservation Data Coordinator
15 July 2022 11:02am
Writing Bootcamp: Ask the WILDLABS Editor
6 July 2022 8:29pm
7 July 2022 12:10am
Awesome! We were wondering about writing on WildLabs now that you can publish articles to specific topics. My writing skills are a bit rusty too. Looking forward to the article series :)
14 July 2022 3:11am
Thanks Akiba, hope you liked the series and found it helpful! Can't wait to see what you share! If you ever need someone to help brainstorm ideas on how to approach specific topics, drop in here anytime!
Service Designer
13 July 2022 9:05am
Writing Bootcamp: Shaping Your Story
7 July 2022 10:10pm
Writing Bootcamp: Questions for Writers
6 July 2022 10:47pm
4 October 2023 6:39pm
Knowing Nature: New conservation technologies & knowledge systems to support the SDGs and post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework
5 July 2022 8:46pm
New Platform Help: Troubleshooting & bugs
6 May 2022 9:21am
5 July 2022 6:40am
I have had two this week. Is there a way to report/ block them?
Messages have started with "Hello Darling" so do not think they are conservation orientated
5 July 2022 9:39am
Okay great - thanks for flagging this. It's helpful to know it didn't just come to our team's accounts - we also got the same message and blocked the account immediately. Til now our spam filiters have working well blocking accounts like this at the registration stage, but we're going to change some things to prevent abuse of the DM system. We're having a meeting to finalise some decisions on it this morning - will report back after.
Thanks!
Steph
5 July 2022 11:28am
Quick report on what we're doing on the technical side:
First of all, so sorry that this has happened. We worked hard on spam prevention on the registration system and after lots of effort using many different methods, managed to cut that down to zero or almost zero. At least for automated "bot" accounts.
But the user account involved in this seems to have got by that and then used our bespoke messaging system to spam recently logged in users. From the facts that
- it targeted recently logged in users (who appear in that order on the member directory)
- the messages are spaced apart in time in a way that a robot would probably not do
I suspect this is a manual copy-paste spammer.
We're working on reporting tools and other ways to prevent this but for now we've changed the system so that messages from blocked users will no longer be shown in member inboxes.
Please continue to report spam issues to the WILDLABS team until we work out further solutions for reporting.
Any suggestions from other platforms you use on which reporting tools you find the most helpful will also be much appreciated. We'd love to fix this in a way that helps with any other platform abuse issues that might come up in the future as the community grows.
Writing Bootcamp: What content type fits my story?
1 July 2022 10:19pm
Friday Check In (+ Mid-year reflection prompts)
1 July 2022 11:32am
Announcing Our Upcoming Sustainability Series
30 June 2022 8:54pm
Developers, Makers, & Engineers: Recent Supply Chain Issues
6 April 2021 10:41pm
17 April 2021 3:33am
I haven't been affected, my quantities are small and they are all jellybean parts. nothing remotely exotic.
23 April 2021 6:19pm
Yes, I am also having supply problems lately, not so much of components as of plates or other materials that I have to receive from Japan (;-), Australia, China, ... My impression is that bottlenecks are occurring in some parts of the supply chain. I imagine that the COVID and the shutdown of the Suez Canal for days did not help ...
29 June 2022 11:08pm
Hi all!
Dropping back in to share that we're thinking about how supply chain issues tie into our upcoming series on conservation tech sustainability. We've started a Twitter thread about it here:
The ongoing supply chain crisis in conservation tech has made many tools and materials scarce, and revealed the fragility of our access to conservation tech tools and resources. But can sustainable materials and open source tools help us navigate future supply chain issues? pic.twitter.com/EX9mrtLbXu
— WILDLABS Community (@WILDLABSNET) June 29, 2022
Feel free to continue sharing your thoughts in this discussion thread as well - we'd love to hear more about how the supply chain issues have continued to impact you, as well as how your experiences have related to our questions about sustainability, whether positively or negatively!
New Conservation Tech Directory update
27 June 2022 4:45pm
Grants for vehicles
21 June 2022 5:10pm
21 June 2022 9:33pm
There was a previous Wildlabs thread on this - https://wildlabs.net/discussion/conservation-grants-field-vehicles but it didn't garner any comments unfortunately.
I'm not sure if IdeaWild allows for car repairs? The grants are for equipment specifically. That's a small grant anyways though ($1500) so you'd probably need something bigger it sounds like.
I don't know of any grants specifically funding this, but most people I know who have gotten vehicles have applied for bigger grants that they write a new vehicle into as a budget line item (e.g., WWF, WCS, CI, MBZ, national agencies like NSF).
22 June 2022 3:58pm
Hi Carly,
Thanks for digging up my previous thread (I couldn't find it). I guess I've been asking this question for a few years now!
I had also heard of grants from car companies but it seems they stopped doing this (or limit their support to areas around their factories, like Toyota).
Invitation to Silverstrand Capital's Biodiversity Accelerator+
17 June 2022 11:28am
18 June 2022 3:49am
Hi Stephanie,
Thanks for getting back! I have updated the link to our website, where we have our launch event recording and the application form for companies.
In short, we are looking for companies past ideation stage employing either nature tech and/or nature-based solutions. While this is a global call, we will prefer if the company is currently operating in or have intent to operate in South East Asia. We have more examples at our website but I will be happy to answer your questions if any.
Do follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/silverstrand-capital/ and feel free to share with your network as well! We do see biodiversity as a serious crisis to tackle and we want to empower founders that are mission-aligned with us.
Dean
20 June 2022 1:05pm
Hi Dean,
I love the sound of this accelerator, it's the sort of thing I'm looking to support through Cambridge Consultants' Tech for Good initiative. We're engineers, scientists and designers who could help with advice around building a first prototype of a new technology, or what it takes to get a technology to market quickly, just for example. Would you like to connect for an initial exploratory chat?
21 June 2022 2:49am
Hi Isobel,
Great to hear from you! I would love to learn more and connect so that I can discuss with the team further.
You can reach me here: [email protected] . Thank you so much for your interest!
Dean
What events/workshops are you looking forward to?
1 June 2022 12:12pm
6 June 2022 9:33am
Hi Steph,
Great to hear back. Yes, mostly working on forest conservation and fire in the West but also conservation finance (analog and automated platforms to leverage public/private funding) and remote sensing a fair bit. I need to get back to carnivores! How about you?
Best,
V
6 June 2022 3:49pm
Sounds great Stephanie, thanks! I think I'm going to go ahead and put a post in the main Acoustics group also, and then will use the instructions to link that post to the event calendar. Thanks again!
20 June 2022 11:25am
This is a great one! I will be attending virtually.
Though did not receive any feedback to the emails I sent them about issues registrating. Had to call them from Italy to get a response, was not fun -.-" ! But very excited about this event, hopefully everything runs smoothly for us attending virtually, although I'm a little discouraged.
Cheers :)
On the lookout for CAD/Microcontroller work!
17 June 2022 5:04pm
15 September 2022 12:17pm
Ah Journal club - this was a lot of fun but a little chaotic. We've been wondering if we should bring it back with a slightly different format. ie we all agree on a paper to read before rather than bringing a mix of things to present. What does everyone think? Is anyone else keen? Is there a format you'd suggest we use?