LIDAR technology leads Brazilian team to 30 story tall Amazon tree
The 88.5 meter (290 foot) tree was found by a study team creating a detailed forest biomass map of the Amazon to track carbon emissions caused by land use change.
Conservation Technology News
Wildtech provides news and information on how the conservation community can better leverage technology. Mongabay is a non-profit.
Can camera traps diagnose the severity of a mystery giraffe skin disease?
Giraffes have many problems to deal with. There’s habitat loss and poaching. Then there’s a mysterious skin disease that’s been recorded in 13 giraffe populations in seven African countries. The…
Fighting Africa’s fall armyworm invasion with radio shows and phone apps
How does fish soup end up on a maize plant? Farmers in Malawi developed the idea to protect their plants from the invasive fall armyworm (Spodoptera frugiperda). They found that…
The Ocean Cleanup successfully collects ocean plastic, aims to scale design
On October 2nd, the Dutch non-profit The Ocean Cleanup announced that it has successfully developed a device that can capture and collect ocean plastic, moving the organization closer to its…
Satellite collars to help boost protection for Nigeria’s largest remaining elephant herd
LAGOS — In early October, the Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) fitted six elephants in northern Nigeria's Yankari National Park with satellite collars. The collars will help WCS, which works with…
Companies ‘disregard responsibility’ over conflict minerals: Report
An analysis of 215 companies’ mineral supply chains has found many have fallen short of their obligations under the Conflict Minerals Rule, also known as Section 1502 of the Dodd-Frank…
New app tracks down forest fires in Bolivia
A new app aimed at tracking forest fires in Bolivia could shake up the way authorities and firefighters battle fires, allowing them to pinpoint their locations more accurately and safely.…
New detection devices could record microplastic pollution levels in real time
The scope of the microplastic pollution problem is astonishing. While nations need to slow the rate of plastics entering Earth's waters, discovering what the density of it is, and where…
Protected areas best conserve mammalian diversity when connected with corridors, biologged weasels show
In a recently published study, Canadian researchers monitored the fine-scale movements of GPS-tagged fishers (Pekania pennanti), a member of the weasel family, across a terrain of over 700 protected areas…
‘No place to hide’ for illegal fishing fleets as surveillance satellites prepare for lift-off
The prospect of monitoring every vessel at sea in real time has moved a step closer to reality as a new generation of surveillance satellites takes to the skies. The…
Snow leopard population overestimated in Nepal? DNA study suggests it may be
In September 2014, Nepali zoologist Madhu Chetri asked his professor Morten Odden a strange question during their fieldwork. "Are you tired?" he asked Odden as the duo from the Inland…
Satellite images from Planet reveal devastating Amazon fires in near real-time
High-resolution images from satellite company Planet are revealing glimpses of some of the fires currently devastating the Amazon rainforest. While many of the images currently being shared on social media…
Precision conservation: High tech to the rescue in the Peruvian Amazon
Conservation leaders join successfully with technologists to thwart artisanal gold mining and illegal logging by creating early warning systems and transparency.
Tests show multi-rotor UAVs can improve cetacean behavioral studies
A New Zealand-based research team assessing the utility of small, multi-rotor unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) to survey and study humpback whales determined that video data collected from a UAV improved…
New toolkit identifies multiple species from environmental DNA
Researchers from the University of California Los Angeles (UCLA) and CALeDNA have developed a toolkit designed to quickly identify the species in a biological community by simultaneously analyzing the environmental…
Baby whale wears a camera, reveals its travel and nursing behavior: video
Baby whales, like all young mammals, rely on their mother’s milk for their early development. A new video follows a nursing humpback whale and her calf and takes the calf’s…
Indonesia, facing a waste crisis, plans to burn it for electricity
JAKARTA — The Indonesian government plans to burn waste to fuel power plants in four cities on the island of Java this year as part of efforts to tackle the…
Conservation tech prize with invasive species focus announces finalists
The Con X Tech Prize just announced its second round will be funding 20 finalists each with $3,500 to create their first prototypes. Some 150 teams submitted ideas that use…
On public interest in conservation and internet data (commentary)
Conservationists are increasingly looking toward technology for aid. We are now better able to monitor forest change as result of deforestation or climate change, survey inaccessible areas for rare species…
Let there be lights, to help migratory cranes avoid power lines
Cranes are celebrated for their large size, beauty, unique courtship dancing, and extensive annual migrations. Sandhill cranes (Antigone canadensis), for example, migrate north each year from wintering grounds in Mexico…
Film that fish: Stereo-video speeds surveys of marine fish communities
Marine biologists survey fish assemblages and their associated habitat to understand the ecosystem of a place, compare fish communities over time or in response to changes in management, and examine…
New eDNA sampling system aims for cleaner, more efficient field research
When collecting a DNA sample from a species in the wild just isn’t possible — it’s elusive, it may disturb the animal, or a host of other reasons — field…
More than 50 lakes lie hidden beneath Greenland ice sheet, study finds
Until recently, researchers knew of four lakes lying hidden underneath the Greenland ice sheet. Now, scientists say they’ve identified 56 more, bringing the total to 60 known subglacial lakes beneath…
Sponges supply DNA for new method of monitoring aquatic biodiversity
Feeding aquatic sponges could provide biologists with unexpected underwater data collection assistance. Sponges (phylum Porifera) are immobile aquatic animals that eat by filtering out food particles from the water around…
“Part of something bigger”: the social movement around New Zealand’s Predator-Free 2050 goal
In Whāingaroa/Raglan on New Zealand’s (NZ’s) west coast, trapping for introduced mammals that prey on endangered native birds is something of a competitive sport. Karioi Project, a local conservation NGO…
’Livestock revolution’ triggered decline in global pasture: Report
Globally, the land we use for pasture is contracting, according to a new report from the Breakthrough Institute, an environmental think tank based in Oakland, California. The technical know-how also…
New tool helps monitor forest change within commodities supply chains
Commercial agriculture drives some 40 percent of deforestation in the tropics, as suppliers clear forest to plant soy, oil palm, rubber, and cacao or to raise beef cattle. More than…
Predator-free by 2050? High-tech hopes for New Zealand’s big conservation dream
When the British explorer James Cook circumnavigated the islands that he would later call New Zealand in 1769, he described the birdsong on the densely forested archipelago as “deafening.” One…
Tiny tracking tags help decode how echolocating bats navigate
While we fumble and crash without any light, bats zipping away in the dark, effortlessly skirting obstacles and pouncing on prey, seem magical. To better understand this ability of bats…
Altered forests threaten sustainability of subsistence hunting
The way humans have changed the forests of Central and South America may be making it impossible for subsistence hunters to continue their way of life, according to two conservation…
