🌴 Citizen Science and Indigenous Perspectives: A Solution to Rainforest Loss?
The Seven Sacred Pools, Maui, Haiwaii. Photo by Nathan Ziemanski.
Setting the Scene
How can we learn to protect the rainforests?
How can we begin to reward those who already protect them?
Rainforests hold 50-70% of the world's biodiversity yet cover only 6% of the globe. Indigenous populations protect over 80% of the world's biodiversity yet make up only 6% of the global population.
We can only value what we can measure.
And so we are losing biodiversity at an exponential rate and indigenous peoples make up 15% of the world’s extreme poor.
Learning how to value nature is proving a steep learning curve for our modern culture. Currently biodiversity doesn't often appear on the accountants sheet. But that is starting to change. Part of the problem is that valuing natural systems is made difficult because they are complex; biodiversity is hard to measure.
Hence, clever finance – dare I say wise finance – is being directed towards the emerging technologies that can help us measure biodiversity.
What would it mean to design our tech today to measure, make visible and appreciate nature?
The Scape - The Biodiversity Backpack.
You live amongst ancient rainforests. Unlike much of our global rainforest, the rainforest that surrounds you is still standing.
Why?
Many in the community suggest it was due to a decision to adopt an emerging confluence of technologies. A confluence that integrated AI identification systems, drone technology and web3 reward systems into a systemic solution.
The drones fit into a backpack. They use noise tracking, the latest camera equipment and eDNA sampling technology to build highly detailed biodiversity maps.
The AI identification system, trained by and monitored by a Council of Indigenous Scientists, ensures accurate identification measurement of biodiversity within the region.
The Web3 system ensures that anyone who already 'values' biodiversity and specifically rainforests, can directly reward those on the frontline for their work 'making visible' the biodiversity.
Together, this confluence has mobilised the community. They have become citizen scientists and are rewarded for their work measuring the levels of biodiversity within the surrounding rainforests.
Once a week, a couple experts head to the outdoor labs, bordering the rainforest, with a group of schoolchildren. Together they fire up the drones and send them into the forest. Fed back almost instantly, the data processed by the AI identification systems narrates in real-time just how alive the forest is. For the schoolchildren, this is one of their core 'experiential' weekly classes. Only when the data finds something anomalous does it defer to the Local Council of Indigenous Scientists.
Similarly, all those who like spending time in the rainforest and want a 'citizen scientist' role, are lent one of the community drones able to operate on autopilot mode. Fitting simply into a backpack, the ease of transportation intertwines leisure-time in nature with the protection of nature. For taking up these education and biodiversity-measurement roles, the members of the community are rewarded by Web3 payments pouring in directly from concerned people across the globe. These 'stable' coins are easily transferable to any local currency.
Today, the region’s rainforest is still flourishing. The calls for deforestation became increasingly lacklustre as the extent of the region's biodiversity was slowly revealed. Though there was still argument about how much economic value should be assigned to this biodiversity hotspot, it was clearly more than the dead timber alternative.
And the impact to the region extends far beyond the rainforest.
The local community now is recognised as a guardian of one of key planetary boundaries. And for being its guardian, they are rewarded. The ‘Conservation Basic Income’ has catalysed a sustainable economy in this previously underprivileged region has been transformative.
For the younger generations, education and enjoyment in nature have been intertwined. Displaying the data to 'make visible' the biodiversity of the rainforest, the drones also help reveal the wonders and complexity of its life, encouraging a sense of 'appreciation' across each generation. This appreciation, often termed Biophilia, continues to remind the local population that the value of nature is probably beyond anything our economic models will ever truly capture.
This was an initial fear.
What if our AI systems became so efficient at modelling that we felt confident in reducing biodiversity to another asset on the accountants sheet?
That we felt we satisfied by biodiversity's price-tag?
Given we've priced nature wrong before, would this be wise? Would the root problem continue to grow more malignant?
And so, wary of the previous mistakes, our AI systems were trained by Indigenous experts and perspectives. The Local Council continues to monitor and impress caution upon the AI's modelling. It acts as a humility screen, reminding us that the model can never truly represent the territory.
Value is inherent in measurement. But measurement is only one route to conveying our sense of value. And as the success of this technology has shown, measurement is the often only the most visible aspect of something far more meaningful.
Show Notes
Inspired by the ETH Biodivx team competing this week at the Rainforest XPRIZE. They are formed of:
GainForest: A swiss tech non-profit helping reward local communities for preventing deforestation and harnessing AI to improve conservation transparency.
BioDivExplorer: A team working on environmental robotics and eDNA sampling technologies.
For more information on their story, read here.
