We’re so excited to see what comes of the growing discussions on sustainability started throughout our community. As the WILDLABS team builds our next editorial series on conservation tech sustainability, we want your help looking ahead to the future of our field.

To keep these conversations rolling, we have a big question for this group: What emerging technologies do you think have the biggest potential to make conservation technology more sustainable? In other words, what do the next big & sustainable conservation tech innovations look like, and how can our community get there? 

Maybe you’re interested in how solar power solutions can reduce our negative impact, or how 3D printing of open source tools and parts can reduce our reliance on the global supply chain and destructive mining for certain minerals/metals? Or maybe you’ve considered how noninvasive survey methods and emerging tools like eDNA can help us design surveys more effectively and use fewer tools in more effective ways?

And of course, if you have ideas we haven’t even thought to consider yet, we’d love to hear those, too! 

We hope to see this thread become an ongoing knowledge bank for sharing ideas, resources, and advice as new technologies and techniques evolve. Can’t wait to read what you all think of conservation tech’s sustainable future!

-Ellie