Ethics in conservation
15 March 2024 8:53am
5 April 2024 8:19am
Hi Luciano,
Thank you for joining in in the discussion!
I really love your perspectives on this. It is exciting to learn that I am not all alone in this. You know, at one point you think that some of these things are because you are not effectively doing your work, but then it is just how the system works. I am glad I figured it out. My main concern was how do I really get my data, remain safe from what seems to be an intricate, closely guarded practice and also protect my study participants and their communities from unintentional exposure to the securities. Through the process, I have gained lots of experience in navigating ethics in conservation, especially when the topic in question is illegal.
DIY VHF receivers?
12 March 2024 2:51pm
29 March 2024 4:32pm
Hi Brandon,
I agree and think VHF will always have better range than UHF. Given how commonly it's used in wildlife tracking, it also makes perfect sense to use it if possible. The trade-off for us was to go for lower cost and higher availability parts. This is particularly a problem for VHF receivers, as you mentioned in your original message. But, SDR is good option potentially for VHF (and UHF), especially given the success of MOTUS.
Range of our 433MHz UHF tags was usually around 250m (up to 500m) LOS, using an external antenna and a high transmission power. We also used high gain, omnidriectional antennas on the receiver end. Tags were triggered by an accelerometer threshold so that they'd save a bit of power whilst animals were resting.
More than happy to discuss further and help if I can.
Cheers,
Rob
3 April 2024 5:04am
Hi Brandon,
This is hard for me to write, because I don't have good news for you. You can find many receivers and transmitters for 433MHz that are used for remote control, such as wireless doorbells, garage door openers, lost model locators, etc. These are extremely cheap, a couple of dollars literally. While this tech can be modified to operate with wildlife tags (around 150MHz), we are talking about hacking RF, not to be approached lightly.
If you really need to DIY, I see 2 options: migrate to 433MHz and build/rebuild all your kit (tags, collars, receivers, locators). Commercial solutions are cheap and available, the work remaining is not much above handyman level. But it is work, and not just work but also testing.
The other option is to remain with 150MHz (although you can make your own tags) and modify an aviation receiver (it lets you listen in to aircraft talking to each other or to the airport). These receivers operate at 130MHz, which puts it in spitting range of 150MHz wildlife tags (this matters). This is the option I'd go for, just because I know it can be done, and I have less sense than curiosity.
4 April 2024 9:05pm
You mention you're working with an engineer, here are a couple of pointers:
- with an SDR (the "digital USB receivers" you mention) you can scan some bandwidth to detect radio pulses. I'm only familiar with the Lotek coded VHF transmitters but they can be received as in the Motus Sensorgnomes. I can point you at the code used there, it does involve a good amount of digital signal filtering/analysis code. One issue with the SDRs is that they're pretty power hungry so you need to plan on more solar panel and battery than you may like, e.g. even rPi Zero + SDR is probably >300mA. Another issue can be interference in that SDRs have a very wideband front-end and so TV, radio, and other stuff can desensitize the front-end.
- there are integrated receivers (ICs) that can be tuned to 150Mhz and can detect VHF transmissions, it's easy for non-coded ones, a bit more involved for coded ones. Specifically, the Semtech sx1231 or sx1276 series are widely available (often called Hope RF69 or RF96, which are modules with those chips). You need someone comfortable writing a customized driver that uses OOK mode or RSSI detection. The other issue is that while there are many suitable boards available for 433/868/915Mhz (e.g. Adafruit, Sparkfun, LilyGo, and many others) you most likely won't find one for 150Mhz. However, for RX-only the matching isn't so super important if you have a good antenna and the signal isn't crazy weak. From a power point of view these can sip power so you can run one on an 18650 for days and a small 1W-5W solar panel is most likely all you need.
Hope this helps...
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22 March 2024 9:48am
Hi @lucianofoglia
Thanks for sharing your thoughts with the community. What you've touched on resonates with a number of users and developers (looking at you @Rob_Appleby) who share similar concerns and are keen to address these issues.
As a beliver in open sourcing conservation technologies, to mitigate issues you've noted (maintenance of technologies / solutions, repairability, technical assistance to name but a few), really the only way to achieve this in my eyes is through the promotion of openness to enable a wide range of both technical and non-technical users to form the pool of skills needed to react to what you have stated. If they can repair a device, or modify it easily, we can solve the waste issue and promote reusability, but first they need access to achieve this and commerical companies typically shy away from releasing designs to protect against their IP that they keep in house to sell devices / solutions.
I would think for an organisation to achieve the same the community would need to help manufacturers and developers open and share hardware designs, software, repairability guides etc, but the reality today is as you have described.
One interesting conversation is around a kitemark, i.e a stamp of approval similar to the Open Source Hardware Association's OSHWA Certification), but as it's not always hardware related, the kitemark could cover repairability (making enclosure designs open access, or levels of openness to start to address the issue). Have a look at https://certification.oshwa.org/ for more info. I spent some time discussing an Open IoT Kitemark with http://www.designswarm.com/ back in 2020 with similar values as you have described - https://iot.london/openiot/
You may want to talk more about this at the upcoming Conservation Optimism Summit too.
Happy to join you on your journey :)
Alasdair (Arribada)
30 March 2024 3:57pm
Hi @Alasdair
Great to hear from you! Thanks for the comment and for those very useful links (very interesting). And for letting @Rob_Appleby know. I can't wait to hear from her.
Open source is my preference as well. And it's a good idea. But, already developing the tech in house is a step ahead from what would be the basic functional application of an organization that could manage the tech for a whole country/region.
I have witnessed sometime how tech have not added much to the efficiency of local teams but instead being an tool to promote the work of NGOs. And because of that then innovative technologies are not developed much further that a mere donation (from the local team's perspective). But for that tech to prove efficient, a lot more work on the field have to be done after. The help of people with expertise in the front line with lots of time to dedicate to the cause is essential (this proves too expensive for local NGOs and rarely this aspect is consider).
I imagine this is something that needs to come from the side closer to the donors and International NGOs. Ideally only equipment can be lend within a subscription model and not just donated without accountability on how that tech is use. Effectively the resources can be distributed strategically over many projects. Allowing to tech to be repurposed.
Sorry that I step down the technical talk, the thing is that sometimes the simplest things can make the most impact.
It would be good to know if any in the community that have spent considerable time working in conservation in remote regions, and have observed similar trends.
Thanks! Luciano
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Hi,
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27 March 2024 3:22pm
Hi @Henrikcox this is very exciting news about the Sentinel. The LoRa and cell options sound really great for a lot of urban/semi-urban areas, so a big potential winner there. Does the Sentinel offer any sort of GPIO pins that could possibly be connected to something external (e.g. like a sound unit that can playback scary sounds) if a detection occurs?
Also @StephODonnell I'd be super keen for something like a 'WILDLABS working group' or similar on this, as it such an important topic.
Rob
27 March 2024 3:45pm
INTERESTING. Okay hold tight on that idea. We've got some events coming on this topic (hence my questions), so a working group could follow on from that?
28 March 2024 7:17am
Hi @Henrikcox
I hope you are well.
I am not sure if you may remember myself and my colleague from CLS. We had a meeting and met in-person at Earthranger last year.
I would be very keen to discuss your current satellite limitations and suggest options based on your required outcome. Please let me know if I can assist?
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26 March 2024 3:13pm
Hi Henrik!
We are going to do tests in the Copenhagen Zoo in Denmark during 2024 and in spring 2025. In the summer of 2025, the plan is to install a system in Northeast Greenland but I am also looking for opportunities to test it at sites with more plar bear action - like in Churchill Manitoba in fall 2025.
The system we started with is based on an NVIDIA Jetson Orin™ NX 16GB module but we are testing it alongside a RaspberryPi 5 based system.
Cheers,
Lars
27 March 2024 1:56pm
Great to know Lars! Let's stay in touch on this, would love to join the testing out there.
Cheers,
Henrik
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25 March 2024 11:39am
Ha - you're already in my thread, i've got your project in there, don't worry!
But it's more I don't want proof of concept early R&D type projects that are just destined for a paper or a hobby project, I want to hear about projects that have some plan for usability and scaling so that other people can take and implement them.
25 March 2024 12:17pm
I think that my system is likely the closest thing you will find in terms of production ready and potential to scale as it once was a commercial system with complete over the air updates more than 10 years ago. It’s been in use by many people for more than 10 years and has used AI triggering since 2019. I’m pretty sure no other system can claim that.
So I have the system but you got me on the scalability because to do that you need funding. I don’t have the funding. If I had the funding I’d be doing it full time. But I’ve said enough now. So I’ll leave it at that.
25 March 2024 12:26pm
This thread is off-topic in this conversation, so happy to continue it in the other one. However, just noting - your system is one example, but not the only one - there are certainly other early warning systems in varying stages of development, testing and roll out, and using different levels of technology (ai or otherwise).
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3 April 2024 4:38pm
Hi Sherril,
I can't believe this was posted almost a month ago. And more surprising that there are no comments about it yet.
That experience you had is one of the kind, because most people in conservation don't get to deal with ethics and moral issues in the front line that often. It's just because most people do desk work. Including managing directors of projects deployed in remote places. I can relate your experience to any field, I would say it's almost a human behavior classics. I understand it can be frustrating and also a lonely journey. Myself I had experience a lot of that in the last years. To a point that I was almost quitting doing my best for conservation, I was burnt out for seeing that the reality was a very different picture from the marketing about it. But I feel fortunate that I have been observing these realities in the sector first-hand for long time now. And because I did it all independently and self funded I can speak my mind about it. Which there are not many people with that freedom I found out.
You talk about illegal practices, in countries where corruption seems more "brutal", for governments and organizations the fact that something is illegal can be pretty relative concept. And methods follow short when that is the case. Many times I observed apparent combat of poaching activities, but after years of observation and doing my own research it was clear that the local governments were pretty aware of illegal activities and just not being honest enough to address them. Mainly because the donors are far away, way removed from the realities in the front line, so the remoteness of some places allows for a very flexible understanding of ethics in some cases.
Your experience is very valuable, I'm glad to hear that you got the permits at the end. And good luck with your research, remember to write, record and share your experiences. There is a lot of people in the same situation. Stay independent, stay free, share your knowledge.
Best, Luciano
nowforwildlife.org