I am passionate about the environment and everything related to it. My career path has included entrepreneurship and software development. But my first entry into conservation work was at National Geographic, where I learnt how technology can help with tangible problems, such as tracking elephant migration.
In 2018, I joined EarthRanger, a technology platform now owned by the Allen Institute for AI in Seattle, Washington. EarthRanger collects, integrates and displays data and combines them with field reports on everything from animal traps to landslides. The platform has nearly 100 hardware and software data sources, including acoustic sensors and vehicle trackers. Conservationists can see a map with a unified, real-time view of relevant data, from positions of collared wildlife to observations from rangers. Before EarthRanger, these data were recorded on paper or spread across databases.
I oversee the platform and develop the software. I spend a lot of time in the field with our partners, which include more than 400 organizations. I work with teams that track animals, study ecosystems and promote human–wildlife coexistence.
One of our founding partners is Save the Elephants, based in Samburu, Kenya. It tracks hundreds of elephants across Africa and uses EarthRanger to monitor their locations.
In this picture, I’m at the Save the Elephants headquarters. I’m surrounded by the skulls and jaws of elephants that have died from both natural and unnatural causes. It’s a remarkable place to reflect. It reminds you of the magnitude and urgency of the problem we’re facing.
One elephant dying is a tragedy, and local interventions are needed to prevent more deaths. Tens of thousands dying is an existential risk. Mitigating that risk requires coordinated actions across many communities, organizations and governments.
Source: Ecology - nature.com
