ZSL at the UK’s AI Safety Summit

The UK’s global AI Safety Summit took place this week, with the ZSL conservation tech team in attendance to demonstrate how AI is transforming conservation for the better.

From predicting where poachers will strike, to sorting through millions of camera trap images, AI has the potential to power up conservation – and ZSL is at the heart of this tech revolution.

Joined by some of our partners, and a few fluffy friends, we showed 300 of the world’s tech influencers and policymakers - attendees included Elon Musk and Secretary of State Michelle Donelan - how AI is making a difference to our work protecting species.

It has the potential to do so much more with the right support.

Wildlife Insights

Using Computer Vision to power conservation

Camera traps are vital for monitoring threatened wildlife, especially in remote environments. But manually analysing the millions of images generated slows down our conversation efforts.

AI is transforming the way we process this vital stream of data, using Computer Vision to automate species identification. Wildlife Insights, a major partnership between ZSL, Google and seven international NGOs - including Conservation International, and WWF – has made cutting-edge Computer Vision tools available to conservationists worldwide via a free, online platform.

SMART PAWS

Predicting threats to wildlife in the world’s protected areas

Around 17% of the world’s land and inland waters are currently under protection. Yet part rangers working on the frontline frequently lack the resources and information needed to respond effectively to pervasive threats to wildlife, such as poaching.

SMART, developed by ZSL and a partnership of nine international NGOs, is a suite of technologies designed to empower park staff to monitor and understand threats to wildlife and manage their limited resources efficiently. The power of AI is now amplifying these efforts: PAWS (Protection Assistant for Wildlife Security) uses SMART data, machine learning, and game theory to predict when and where poaching is likely to occur and plan the best patrol routes.

The sound of saving species

Monitoring the conservation soundscape using AI

Acoustic monitoring has the potential to revolutionise conservation, enabling tracking of biodiversity and threats to wildlife across entire landscapes.

AI now provides an automated means of quickly processing acoustic data and identifying sounds of interest. Using the visual representation of a sound – a spectrogram – we can use Computer Vision to recognise sounds, such as the call of a particular species, or even human activity, such as poaching and illegal logging.

In collaboration with Google Cloud, ZSL is developing this ability to rapidly process large acoustic datasets, so we can applying the technology to inform conservation action.

Can you help power conservation?

We’re developing cutting-edge ways to save wildlife.

But we can’t do it without you.

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