Conservation and technology: an introduction

For decades, conservation has lagged behind the rate and scale of some of the world’s primary environmental challenges, with scientists unable to collect, monitor, and incorporate sufficient data necessary to support addressing global threats to wildlife and their habitat. However, with innovative technology, we are rapidly improving the way that scientists can provide data for decision-makers. We can now monitor key ecosystem components in near real-time, remotely revealing changes from the scale of individual trees up to entire forest blocs. Data collectors use smartphones to identify and report illegal human activity such as poaching and logging, relaying information to critical stakeholders. Finally, computer scientists are developing algorithms to more efficiently process incoming large data sets, minimizing turnaround time from data collection to taking preventive steps for species conservation. In some cases, the speed of technological solutions has outpaced the ethical guidelines to limit their use, especially when resulting data may infringe on people’s privacy. Regardless, the progress has thrust technological solutions for biological problems to the forefront of conservation. The threats to biodiversity show little sign of abating, but technology is narrowing the gap between the tempo and scale of the problem, and our understanding of how to develop solutions.