A global community‐sourced assessment of the state of conservation technology

Abstract

Conservation technology holds the potential to vastly increase conservationists’ ability to understand and address critical environmental challenges, but systemic constraints appear to hamper its development and adoption. Understanding of these constraints and opportunities for advancement remains limited. We conducted a global online survey of 248 conservation technology users and developers to identify perceptions of existing tools’ current performance and potential impact, user and developer constraints, and key opportunities for growth. We also conducted focus groups with 45 leading experts to triangulate findings. The technologies with the highest perceived potential were machine learning and computer vision, eDNA and genomics, and networked sensors. A total of 95%, 94%, and 92% respondents, respectively, rated them as very helpful or game changers. The most pressing challenges affecting the field as a whole were competition for limited funding, duplication of efforts, and inadequate capacity building. A total of 76%, 67%, and 55% respondents, respectively, identified these as primary concerns. The key opportunities for growth identified in focus groups were increasing collaboration and information sharing, improving the interoperability of tools, and enhancing capacity for data analyses at scale. Some constraints appeared to disproportionately affect marginalized groups. Respondents in countries with developing economies were more likely to report being constrained by upfront costs, maintenance costs, and development funding (p = 0.048, odds ratio [OR] = 2.78; p = 0.005, OR = 4.23; p = 0.024, OR = 4.26), and female respondents were more likely to report being constrained by development funding and perceived technical skills (p = 0.027, OR = 3.98; p = 0.048, OR = 2.33). To our knowledge, this is the first attempt to formally capture the perspectives and needs of the global conservation technology community, providing foundational data that can serve as a benchmark to measure progress. We see tremendous potential for this community to further the vision they define, in which collaboration trumps competition; solutions are open, accessible, and interoperable; and user‐friendly processing tools empower the rapid translation of data into conservation action. Article impact statement: Addressing financing, coordination, and capacity‐building constraints is critical to the development and adoption of conservation technology.

Identifying conservation technology needs, barriers, and opportunities

“…While these options are widely available for commercial application, they may lack features required for ecological conservation purposes such as limited durability and power efficiency, constraints from proprietary silos, or high technical knowledge barriers 15 – 18 . In other cases, adoption of data-rich and real-time sensors can lead to secondary problems with managing large datasets that often require their own custom approaches and pipelines 3 , 13 , 19 .…”

“…In other cases, adoption of data-rich and real-time sensors can lead to secondary problems with managing large datasets that often require their own custom approaches and pipelines 3 , 13 , 19 . Such constraints are thought to limit the uptake of new tools, but only recently have efforts been made to assess the degree to which they restrict the use of technologies in conservation settings and how to prioritize improvements for future development 15 .…”

“…A recent broad survey on the state of the conservation technology field identified that collaboration and information sharing across disciplines and projects was a primary opportunity 15 . For technology-based solutions to have substantial conservation impacts, there is a need for collaborations that effectively identify feature needs, share data, and facilitate iterative development and support 9 , 15 .…”

“…A recent broad survey on the state of the conservation technology field identified that collaboration and information sharing across disciplines and projects was a primary opportunity 15 . For technology-based solutions to have substantial conservation impacts, there is a need for collaborations that effectively identify feature needs, share data, and facilitate iterative development and support 9 , 15 . To facilitate development of conservation technologies and effectively leverage the support of technologists, we aimed to understand the factors contributing to or inhibiting engagement in the collaborative process of technology development and adoption for field use.…”

Coproduce Conservation Technology With Conservation Decision Makers and Practitioners to Increase Its Impact

“…Software, from day-to-day tools like ArcGIS (ESRI, 2021) and conservation planning tools like Marxan (Marxan, 2020), Global Forest Watch (Global Forest Watch, 2021, SMART (SMART, 2021) and others, have made it easy to calculate complex spatial statistics or prioritization landscapes that were previously not possible or commonplace. A recent survey of conservation technologists describes the broad scope of the field (Speaker et al, 2021) These technologies were developed with a clear need in mind and have slowly but steadily grown into widespread use, fundamentally changing "business as usual" and showing how new technologies can drive transformative change in conservation.…”