The Internet of Wild Things: Acoustics, AI and Conservation

Topher White’s organization, Rainforest Connection, is at the cutting edge of conservation technology, using a network of acoustic sensors and AI to immediately detect illegal logging and poaching and monitor biodiversity in the world’s most threatened ecosystems. No other source of data gives us a better picture of the biodiversity make-up and change at scale than acoustic data. Ecoacoustic studies have proven to be uniquely powerful in understanding the health and make-up of ecosystems, but methods of capture and analysis have been expensive, effort-intensive, and case-specific. RFCx is developing tools to continuously capture and analyze acoustic data to empower everyone from biologists to non-profits to citizen scientists to governmental bodies to local people, to better understand how biodiversity is rapidly shifting, and to guide conservation. The organization has been collecting data streams in projects around the world for over six years with data across 38 countries. Stay connect