The Asian elephant remains endangered due to poaching, habitat loss, and growing human-elephant conflict—one of the most pressing conservation challenges globally. In response, our team developed an integrated monitoring and early warning system that combines aerial drones with ground-based infrared cameras. This “sky & ground” network ensures real-time, full-time, and large-scale coverage of elephant activity across Yunnan Province. Drones use thermal imaging and zoom to detect elephants even at night, while 600 infrared cameras enable 24/7 data capture with real-time alerts.
Supported by China’s national and provincial forestry departments, the project trains local youth as monitors and forms community teams. Over 130,000 early warnings have been issued, helping reduce human-elephant conflict and improving safety.
It contributes to GBF Targets A, B, and 1, 4, 20, 21. It strengthens biodiversity protection, enhances community engagement, and offers a scalable model for coexistence.
The Restoration Platform, the core of Forest Cloud, transforms global restoration by simplifying fundraising and ensuring transparency for forest conservation. Since 2018, it has evolved to bring back a trillion trees and conserve 3 trillion existing trees. The open-source, open access, digital solution currently supports scientific restoration initiatives as well as managing and coordinating conservation and restoration efforts globally. It benefits from robust Restoration Standards, proprietary restoration monitoring applications, a robust peer-review system and an ecosystem of ancillary digital solutions – the ‘Forest Cloud’. Proven across 300 restoration initiatives and growing, the Platform unifies restoration organizations (ROs), donors, and scientists. Having demonstrated its success by restoring over 94M trees in 6 years, we now seek to improve its scale and geographic reach and solve the logistical challenges to contribute to a sustainable, thriving future.
WildGuard AI is an Edge AI-powered sensing system by NOARKTECH designed to protect biodiversity and reduce climate-related risks in forest and farm landscapes. Using IIoT (Industrial internet of things) devices connected via LoRaWAN (Long Range Wide Area Network) and LTE (Long Term Evolution), it detects wildfires, heatwaves, and human-wildlife conflict in real time. It combines bioacoustic AI (e.g., elephant and hornbill calls), temperature, and gas sensors to detect anomalies early.
Paired with PAMS (Protected Area Management & Security System), a dashboard for real-time alerts, analytics, and visualization, the system supports proactive action. Piloted in India’s Western Ghats, it helped reduce crop loss, fire spread, and wildlife threats. WildGuard AI and PAMS enable scalable, affordable, and sustainable nature-based intelligence for climate resilience and conservation.
Ribbit is a citizen science web app that uses few-shot transfer machine learning to record, identify, and classify frog and toad calls, contributing crowdsourced data to the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) to address data gaps, especially in the Global South. Identification apps offer significant potential for automatic in situ biodiversity monitoring (Global Partnership on Artificial Intelligence, 2022; Tuia et al., 2022; Nieto-Mora et al., 2023). Our app focuses on anurans, as they are crucial ecosystem indicators (Estes-Zumpf et al., 2022), with over 40% of the species at risk of extinction, and their unique vocalizations are ideal for acoustic identification. Beta testers revealed the app’s potential to contribute data to GBIF while empowering citizen scientists to engage in ecological monitoring. By creating an open-access platform for labeling biodiversity data, Ribbit enables conservation organizations to develop strategies for protecting vulnerable populations and preserving critical ecosystems.
This project is developed on rural farms and Civil Society Natural Reserves within the KBA Serranía de los Paraguas, part of the Tropical Andes and Biogeographic Chocó biodiversity hotspots and the DRMI Serranía de los Paraguas protected area. Unsustainable livestock near forests safeguarding water sources has triggered human-wildlife conflicts (HWCs), tied to land-use change, biodiversity and ecosystem service loss, livestock predation, and retaliatory poaching. To address this, we propose a bottom-up approach involving landscape planning, adaptive livestock practices, sustainable energy for rural homes, behavior change toward wildlife, and community-based jaguar monitoring. This promotes long-term coexistence and improves life quality for people and jaguars, contributing to the Global Biodiversity Framework targets and Sustainable Development Goals, aligned with coexistence principles: do no harm, collaborate, understand context, integrate science and policy, and ensure sustainable pathways.
NFTrees is an innovative conservation financing model by Fundación Futuro that leverages blockchain, AI, and community governance to conserve and restore 195,000 hectares in the Andean Chocó. By tokenizing 10×10 meter plots using high-resolution carbon stock and biodiversity maps, NFTrees connects private-sector funds with local land stewards. This scalable, transparent solution addresses global challenges like deforestation, biodiversity loss, and climate financing gaps. Since 2019, it has channeled more than $800,000 into conservation efforts, creating sustainable economic incentives for smallholders while preserving critical ecosystems.
Mobile phones play a central role in poaching operations, for communication between poaching teams and extraction of illegal goods like rhino horns/elephant tusks.
ScannerEdge detects signals from mobile phones, satellite phones, and other RF communication devices, providing conservation authorities with real-time data to identify potential threats. This makes it an ideal tool for uncovering illegal human activity in remote areas.
ScannerEdge is the world’s first field-deployable radio frequency scanner with LoRaWAN/satellite and Bluetooth connectivity. ScannerEdge
Within five years, this technology could be rolled out globally in more than 50 African and Asian national parks. ScannerEdge is actively contributing to protecting endangered animals, thus to the long-term health of our global ecosystem
‘Fewer of our eco-guards will die, and more poachers will be caught, if we can deploy this technology’ – Lee White, Gabonese minister of Nature”
Scanneredge is proudly the winner of several LOVIE AWARDS and Wubbo Ockels Price 2024
ForestLink: Real-Time Forest Monitoring & Inclusive Decision-Making for Biodiversity. Innovative & low-tech, our ForestLink tech empowers Indigenous people & local communities to monitor tropical forests where they live in real-time, reducing deforestation & protecting human rights & the environment. Using just a mobile phone, forest communities can report illegal activities via satellite, even from remote areas, putting power back in their hands. ForestLink leverages their unique knowledge to defend their rights & influence extractive industries. Being a highly adaptable tool, ForestLink is currently deployed in 5 countries, where it covers a range of issues, e.g. GBV, land rights violations, forest illegalities etc. Data collection can be adapted for smartphones, or simply via SMS, ensuring access to the most remote communities. ForestLink is developed & used in accordance with a rights-based approach & in line with the principles of consent & do-no-harm. Any use of data is in accordance with survivor-centred principles.
En las últimas décadas, la Jalca, ecosistema altoandino importante para la regulación hídrica, se ha visto amenazada por su mal manejo y los cambios en las precipitaciones asociados al cambio climático. Ante esto, el Proyecto Páramo Andino promovió la conservación de la Jalca como fuente de agua, trabajando con la población un plan de manejo participativo, en el cual se priorizaron medidas de conservación del ecosistema y para aprovechar mejor el agua, que juntas contribuyen a la adaptación al cambio climático. Entre las medidas estan: protección de ojos de agua y manantiales con plantaciones de queñual (Polylepis spp.) y pircas de piedras; agroforestería, viveros forestales y forestación con queñual en macizos y protección de praderas con cercos vivos; construcción de microreservorios e instalación de riego por aspersión. Estas medidas fueran recogidas y financiadas por los gobiernos locales y tomadas en cuenta por el gobierno regional para determinar prioridades de conservación.
El PNN Tamá es una estrella hídrica que abastece sectores productivos y comunidades de varios Departamentos al nororiente de Colombia y Estados al occidente de Venezuela. La falta desarrollo local, el conflicto armado, así como el cambio climático y la variabilidad climática han generado presiones frente al uso del suelo en la zona aledaña del PNN Tamá. Como solución, desde Parques Nacionales Naturales de Colombia innovamos la producción local sostenible de sistemas agrofroestales de café, el monitoreo participativo de recurso hídrico y las alianzas para la gestión de recursos, con lo cual se han fortalecido las inversiones y procesos de relacionamiento con actores estratégicos en favor de la conservación de los servicios ecosistémicos que brinda el Parque. Adicionalmente, hemos apoyado la declaratoria de Reservas Naturales de la Sociedad Civil, rodeando y protegiendo al PNN Tamá con áreas protegidas privadas manejadas por las comunidades.
Este programa es el eje transversal que vincula los conocimientos técnicos sobre la realidad del PNMC, permitiendo estimular el involucramiento de los habitantes en el manejo de los recursos naturales. Para su ejecución se debe coordinar con el Ministerio de Educación, sociedad civil y líderes comunitarios.
Las actividades implican difusión por medios radiales, televisado e impreso que se socializaran en un 100% de las comunidades. Los maestros de la zona rural cumplirán un papel importante de réplica y facilitación de conocimientos hacia las nuevas generaciones.
COMO SE HACE
En la Región Trifinio colindan 3 grandes cuencas hidrográficas que proveen vitales servicios ecosistémicos a El Salvador, Guatemala y Honduras. La cuenca del Río Lempa es por ej. clave para el abastecimiento en agua de la capital de El Salvador. En vista de mejorar la recarga hídrica en la Región Trifinio se promovió y acompañó un cambio de uso de suelo con pequeños productores de escasos recursos, viviendo hasta entonces de una agricultura de subsistencia con bajos rendimientos y poco sostenible. Fueron incentivados a probar en parcelas piloto el cultivo de frutales aplicando prácticas de conservación de suelo. La solución comprobó una importante mejora en la infiltración del agua en los suelos. Además, fortaleció el tejido social en las microcuencas piloto promoviendo el intercambio entre los habitantes y actores externos (gubernamentales, no gubernamentales, sector privado). Complementariamente se fortalecieron capacidades de acceso a mercados, lo que mejoró los ingresos familiares.
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