Developing tech solutions to conservation problems
WILDLABS.NET connects conservationists, technologists, engineers, data scientists, entrepreneurs and thought leaders to help them find, share and create effective technology-based solutions to protect threatened wildlife and habitats.
This exciting initiative was launched by United for Wildlife (a collaboration between leading international conservation organisations, including Fauna & Flora) with support from Google.org and ARM to close the information-sharing gap in the fight against illegal wildlife trade and other pressing issues facing our planet.
Technology: problem-solving potential or potential for problems?
Few, if any, people and places on Earth remain unaffected by the reach and ever-escalating pace of disruptive technological innovation.
This is already bringing about a host of benefits – safer travel, improved medical care, greater resource efficiency, and a decrease in emissions from industrial processes, to name just a few.
But technology has also rapidly accelerated the speed and efficiency with which we deplete Earth’s already dwindling natural resources. Although there is enormous potential for technologies to secure a sustainable future for the planet, they will not be applied to this task by accident.
To ensure that new waves of technological innovation have a positive effect on the environment, WILDLABS.NET brings together a community of innovators in the science, technology and entrepreneurial disciplines with practitioners from the conservation and development sectors, and those living closest to biodiversity.
Together, the WILDLABS.NET community is sharing information, experience and ideas freely to co-create technology-enabled solutions to some of today’s greatest conservation challenges.
The aims of the initiative are to:
- Build an open community of conservationists, technologists, scientists, engineers and change-makers around the world who share a deep commitment to biodiversity conservation.
- Use the creative capacity of this community to collaboratively develop technology-enabled solutions to a range of conservation challenges.
- Enable rapid field-based implementation and iterative improvement of these solutions.
- Provide access to the human and financial resources needed to enable solutions to be implemented at scale.
- With a long history of embracing new technologies for good, Fauna & Flora International was a driving force behind the establishment of WILDLABS.NET, and continues to support this exciting community to this day.