Intro and Demo of Solutions for Biodiversity Monitoring

Join our online demo

Join an online session where we will showcase the achievements, solutions, and technologies of Nature FIRST, a project focused on biodiversity preservation. Our goal is to gather feedback from key stakeholders in the ecosystem, as they are the future users of our technology.
The session will begin with an introduction to the project, followed by a demonstration of our achievements and solutions.

After the demonstrations, we will open the floor to a Q&A session where you can ask questions and provide feedback. We hope to start a discussion about the ongoing challenges in biodiversity preservation and gather insights from key players in the field.
The session will take place on April 26, 14:00 CET. We look forward to your participation and contribution to this vital discussion. Please let us know if you can join by completing the form below. After completing the form, you will receive a link for the session!

Agenda (CET)

14:00 – 14:10

Introduction of Nature FIRST by Jan Kees from Sensing Clues

14:10 – 14:45

Nature FIRST tech & solutions demonstrations

• Taxonomy crossovers: EUNIS, CLC, IUCN Red List, Natura2000 and more by Albin from the Semantic Web Company

• Ecosystem base maps by Melanie from Sensing Clues

• Intro to the Habitat Mapping method by Jan-Kees from Sensing Clues

• TrapTagger for Species Recognition by Judith from Sensing Clues

• Towards the Nature FIRST Knowledge Graph by Jan Kees

14:45 – 15:00

Q&A

About Nature FIRST

As a Horizon Europe project funded by the European Commission, Nature FIRST is developing predictive, proactive, and preventative tools for nature conservation.

Stay tuned to learn more about how we combine forensic intelligence, remote sensing technologies and digital twins to protect and restore biodiversity in Europe and beyond. The tools we are developing are tested and demonstrated in the following regions:

• The Carpathian Mountains, a 1,500 km-long range in Central and Eastern Europe.

• The Danube Delta River is Europe’s largest remaining natural wetland. The more significant part of the Danube Delta lies in Romania, and a small part is in Ukraine.

• The Stara Planina Mountains are a mountain range in the eastern part of the Balkan Peninsula.

• And the Ancares y O Courel, the largest green reserve in Galicia, Spain.

Learn more about the project on the Nature FIRST website.

Bird watcher alert!

The crane migration is about to start. With the Crane Radar we’ll show you in real-time where and when you can see them flying!

Crane Radar Hackathon

The Crane Radar

The Crane Radar is a predictive map that gives birdwatchers a real-time indication of where and when crane birds can be spotted and the direction they are heading.

March of this year, Wageningen University (WUR) and Sensing Clues tested the first online version. Based on observations made by citizen scientists via the platform Waarneming.nl, flocks of cranes appeared on the map. An animation then showed the likely location of these flocks, based on the most recent observations, over 20 years of historic observations, and knowledge about for example their average flying speed.

Challenges

To improve the predictions, the hackathon was aimed at finding ways to incorporate additional environmental factors, such as local weather conditions. In addition we wanted to crack several technical issues of the web application, to allow as many bird enthusiasts as possible to use the crane radar during the upcoming autumn migration.

Results

Based on GPS data provided by the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, we were not only able to confirm that wind speed and direction significantly impact the speed and direction of cranes. We also cracked the mathematics behind drift and compensation, two important factors for improving our predictions.

What’s next

In the upcoming months the WUR and Sensing Clues are refining the models and preparing the website. We’ll bring it live in September, about a month before the actual migration starts.

Keep an eye out for our new and improved Crane Radar!

digital twins to foster peaceful Human-wildlife coexistence

Quick-response team in action. Photo by Keith Hellyer

All over the world, human-wildlife coexistence is under pressure. There are many different reasons, but almost all are related to land competition. People tend to use more and more space, but if the natural areas become too small, fragmented or depleted, wildlife is forced to enter human-dominated landscapes to search for food, water, partners and shelter. The consequences are sometimes grave. Crops are eaten and livestock and people attacked. People and wildlife even get killed.

To reduce this problem, many nature conservation organisations engage with local communities to mitigate the damage and establish conditions for peaceful coexistence between people and wildlife. Known solutions include guarding shepherd and dogs, financial schemes to compensate farmers, the funding and placement of fences to keep wildlife at bay, and early warning systems to detect wildlife.

All these measures are very costly and not always effective. Hence, innovations are needed to drive down the costs and boost the effectiveness of existing measures.

The Digital Twin-innovation that we are working on is aimed at boosting the effectiveness of existing measures.This is possible because Digital Twins are sophisticated simulation models that do 3 things:

1. they predict where (groups of) animals are right now,

2. the predictions are continuously updated through real-time observations in the field, and

3. the prediction algorithms automatically become better through time as they learn from every new observation.

Together with the Wageningen University and others, we are developing digital twins for cranes, bears, and elephants (more species will follow!).

Stay tuned if you want to use our Digital Twins to foster peaceful human-wildlife coexistence!