Top 10 happy environmental stories of 2018
“I like to envision the whole world as a jigsaw puzzle with all the pieces of puzzle scattered all over the place. If you look at the whole picture it…
Conservation Technology News
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The biggest rainforest news stories in 2018
2018 was a difficult year for the world's tropical rainforests. Below are of some of the biggest rainforest storylines for the year, but we couldn't cover everything, so if there…
10 ways conservation tech shifted into auto in 2018
You can now speak into your mobile phone and have it produce written text. Then have Google translate your words into Japanese, or Hindi. In two seconds. These examples of…
Drone 3D models help assess risk of turtle nesting beaches to sea level rise
After months of fasting as she traveled hundreds of kilometers across the ocean, a female loggerhead sea turtle hauls herself up onto the sand: the shoreline she has returned to…
Social media, e-commerce sites facilitate illegal orchid trade
Reports of illegal trafficking in elephant ivory or rhino horn abound, but plants are actually more frequent victims of the illicit trade than wildlife. In fact, roughly 30,000 of the…
DNA test helps officials spot dodgy shark shipments
A multi-national research team has developed a rapid DNA identification method to help customs inspectors detect illegally traded wildlife products, beginning with sharks. The DNA testing protocol, published last month,…
Illegal mining in the Amazon ‘not comparable to any other period of its history’
Illegal mining has become an “epidemic” in the Amazon rainforest, destroying naturally protected areas and threatening indigenous territories, according to a new joint study by six Amazonian countries. The crux…
Photos highlight evolving roles of AI, citizen science in species research
On a midsummer evening earlier this year, Tracy Pham was on a walk along Huntington Beach, California, an outing she usually made to photograph birds. This time, along the way,…
Hobby-grade drones can monitor marine animals beneath the surface
Using drones for wildlife surveys isn’t new to marine wildlife research, but it’s been focused mainly on detecting the large mammals and sea turtles that break the ocean’s surface to…
Satellite trackers help fight vultures’ extinction in southern Africa
CAPE TOWN, South Africa — Every other hour, Sonja Krüger logs onto her website and checks the birds’ status. Pharoah is taking a mud bath in the mountains, Jeremia is on…
A monitoring network in the Amazon captures a flood of data
Monitoring technology deployed in a remote rainforest over time subjects it to high heat, humidity, and rainfall, as well as potential damage by insects and other wildlife. When you add…
Peru’s Brazil nut harvesters learn to monitor forests with drones
Flor Rumayna and Sara Hurtado arrived in Lima this past August from their homes in the Amazon headwaters to learn more about aerial monitoring of forests. They’d been researching new technologies…
Mosses could help rapidly detect pollution
Drug-sniffing dogs are an accepted part of our modern world. In the near future, could pollution-sniffing mosses be equally common? Although plants seem inactive compared to animals, a team led…
Bits of DNA in ocean water can reveal white sharks swimming nearby
Sharks shed bits of themselves into the ocean constantly. Scientists can now use DNA in these bits to monitor whether white sharks – commonly called great whites – are swimming…
For elusive Javan rhinos, camera traps are a benevolent Big Brother
YOGYAKARTA, Indonesia — “This is the world’s first ever video of a wild Javan rhino couple mating,” Mamat Rahmat declared in a presentation to veterinary undergrads in the Indonesian city…
‘Drifters of opportunity’: Seabirds track energy in tidal currents
Data from GPS-tagged seabirds, as they were swept along in the strong currents of the Irish Sea, could help researchers move a step closer to harnessing the energy in those…
For the birds: Innovations enable tracking of even small flying animals
Animal tracking has revolutionized our study of animal movements and behavior. Radio transmitter tags, followed by GPS and other satellite-based tags, placed on animals via a collar, harness, glue, or…
Tropical trees grow most easily where they are rare
Tropical forests are incredibly diverse ecosystems, and ecologists have long wondered why. New research studying a specific Panamanian tree – the yellow-flowering Handroanthus guayacan – has provided an answer. But…
Virtual meetup highlights networked sensor technology for parks
Technology users and tech developers don’t always talk directly to each other, but they should. The relatively small size of the scientific/conservation community and its need for a particular suite…
Information-based solutions for forest conservation projects
Forest monitoring has experienced a revolution in recent years, with vast improvements in satellite sensors, the emergence of drones, and growing ubiquity of on-the-ground technologies like smartphones and camera traps.…
