Satellite data and VR could revolutionise conservation
Technology can be used to gather real-time data, protect animals and track biomes, while virtual reality can create immersive experiences of nature, fostering empathy to inspire real-world change
Don’t despair,
COP27 did deliver some green shoots
of hope
Imagine a 12-year-old girl immersed in a coral reef, taking in all the sights of exotic and vibrant fish. Then all of a sudden this underwater paradise is polluted with plastic and oil sludge, and the corals are bleached.
This is among scenarios that come to mind when one considers how virtual reality technology can promote conservation. The use of hi-tech was the subject of a Tipping Points webinar hosted by Oppenheimer Generations Research and Conservation on 24 November.
The meeting looked at how conservation is transforming Africa through technology and how it might help people and the planet tackle climate change.
The presenters were Matthew Child, deputy director for biodiversity economy projects at the South African National Biodiversity Institute (Sanbi); Irene Amoke, executive director of the Kenya Wildlife Trust; Bruce Jones, partnership director for the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence’s EarthRanger software platform; and Lebo Leitch, producer and client liaison at Habitat XR.
Toby Shapshack, editor-in-chief and publisher of Stuff magazine and chief commercial officer of Scrolla. Africa, facilitated the talk.
Amoke spoke about the fact that when lions prey on livestock in Kenya, they risk poisoning or a spear from furious farmers. Might there be a way to reconcile the needs of pastoralists with those of predators?
Amoke is involved in projects to conserve predators in the Masai Mara Reserve, and she believes it can be done. Her trust is already harnessing technology to help humans and wildlife coexist.
She says that by using camera traps, global positioning system satellite colouring, and cybertracker and
EarthRanger software, lions can be tracked in real time and conflict hot spots identified. Such technologies can be used to warn farmers when lions are about, and education can equip farmers with methods to protect their livestock.
The Kenya Wildlife Trust also uses artificial intelligence to identify individual animals, so conservation measures can be better targeted.
But Amoke cautions that although technology offers solutions, it has its downsides.
“We are confident there is a brighter future for technology in conservation, but then being very cognisant of some of the challenges that we face in terms of funding, because technology is not cheap,” says Amoke.
Like Amoke, Sanbi’s Child reckons technology may be part of the solution as it lets us identify trade-offs and nature-based solutions. He mentions remote sensing as a particularly valuable form of technology that lets managers quantify aspects of the wildlife economy to allow for better decision-making.
With 2,666 satellites orbiting the planet and nearly a third of these used for Earth observations, there is tremendous scope for measuring patterns of biodiversity at scale, thereby quantifying habitat loss and better understanding which ecosystems are threatened.
But, like Amoke, Child offers some caveats. He cautions that we should guard against being dazzled by technology for its own sake, quoting activist George Monbiot: “At the end of the day, technology is a tool that can be deployed to make things better or worse. It is not a substitute for confronting power.”
Child says technology can be a double-edged sword if we fail to interpret the data it supplies us correctly. And unless we view the data through a lens that takes into account the landscape and socioeconomic realities, we risk undermining wildlife economies in Africa.
“We should simply see tech and remote sensing as a conversation starter with landowners and communities and not the final say.”
Jones feels technology could revolutionise conservation. His job involves supporting conservation managers and others to implement EarthRanger, a data visualisation and analysis software package that collects, integrates and displays historical and realtime data available from protected areas.
“EarthRanger is a map-based platform whereby a
lot of different sources come into a common platform,” says Jones. “On a screen one can see live positions of aircraft, vehicles, animals, ecologists, rangers and anything that can be tracked. [These] would go into EarthRanger and be displayed so the protected area managers can see what’s going on.”
Researchers can also use EarthRanger for ecological monitoring, with the system gathering data in the field for later analysis.
In the case of woodlands, for example, remote monitoring using satellite imagery lets researchers and managers track the effects of deforestation and keep tabs on veld fires. The information can be shared among organisations and the data used for real-time decision-making.
Conservation is not a wildlife problem; it is a people problem, says Leitch. To address this, Habitat XR works to connect people and nature using augmented and virtual reality, holograms and location-based installations. The idea is to change people’s behaviour and outlook on the natural environment.
These immersive technologies let people experience the natural world in a way that could never be done in real time, says Leitch.
She says research at Stanford University identified virtual reality as a way of inspiring behavioural changes in individuals. The term “telepresence” was coined to describe how the brain can be led to believe it’s in a place where the body is not.
“In this way, if the person is appropriately immersed we are able to convince them that they are in the Himalayas or face to face with a gorilla, places that the average person would not be able to go,” Leich says.
Such an experience makes the participant more open to conversation and to understanding the costs of not having a particular animal in the future or of a certain biome disappearing.
The technology, in partnerships with the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the Marine Megafauna Foundation and the World Wide Fund for Nature, has already helped to raise funds, create awareness through environmental education and inspire policy change. Roving Reporters/DM168
This story was commissioned by Jive Media Africa. Maxcine Kater is a marine biologist interning at the Department of Forestry, Fisheries and the Environment. She is also enrolled on the Roving Reporters Coastal Resilience Reporting Project, an investigative journalism training initiative established with the support of the Henry Nxumalo Foundation.