Serge Wich

Open Letter by scientists to the Council:
"Climate Neutrality Is Europe’s Greatest Economic Opportunity”.
Ahead of the European Council meeting on 23.10.2025,
2,178 scientists urge EU Heads of States & Governments to take ambitious decisions for the 2040 targets.
zenodo.org/records/1739...

Using drones with thermal cameras and ML to automate the detection of small peat fires could help to detect these fires when they are just starting and increase the options to extinguish them: www.mdpi.com/2504-446X/9/...

Our new paper is out!

We found #orangutans develop #nest-building skills through observational #sociallearning, #selectiveattention
to“know-how” and transmission of“know-what” information.
🦧🦧🦧🦧
#academicsky
#primates
#science
#biologicalscience
#warwickpsych

🦧🦧🦧🦧
link.springer.com/content/pdf/...

Conservation tech without Indigenous knowledge and local context has limits (commentary) Technology can be a powerful ally in conservation, but it’s not a silver bullet. Too often, tools like drones, GPS apps or satellite imagery are introduced as standalone solutions, disconnected from…

[COMMENTARY]

Tools like drones & GPS apps allow local & indigenous communities to track deforestation & respond to territorial threats quickly.

But these tools must be introduced with local realities and cultural wisdom in mind.

** The views expressed are author's, not necessarily Mongabay's.

Frontiers | The rising tide of conservation technology: empowering the fight against poaching and unsustainable wildlife harvest IntroductionMarket-driven poaching and unsustainable wildlife harvest are significant drivers of population decline for numerous plant and animal species, in...

Excited to see this paper on conservation technology out by a group of colleagues led by @tonylynam.bsky.social
www.frontiersin.org/journals/eco...

Opportunities and challenges for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity in the robotics age - Nature Ecology & Evolution An expert-elicitation process identifies current methodological barriers for monitoring terrestrial biodiversity, and how technological and procedural development of robotic and autonomous systems may...

Excited to see this paper out with a focus on robotic and autonomous systems (RAS) and conservation. "Overall, it was felt that RAS could lead to major progress in monitoring of terrestrial biodiversity by supplementing rather than supplanting existing methods."

www.nature.com/articles/s41...

YouTube video by ExplorerHome Madagascar Ranomafana & Ihofa Project | Serge Wich sharing his expertise using drone for primatology

Here the next video for the conservation technology project in Madagascar. This time on drones: www.youtube.com/watch?v=3cw5...

🚨🐵Paid primate work: In collaboration with Stichting AAP and University of Rennes, we are looking for a research coordinator to monitor a wild Barbary macaque reintroduction. More details and how to apply can be found here: groups.google.com/a/g-groups.w...

YouTube video by ExplorerHome Madagascar Ranomafana & Ihofa Project | AudioMoth with Finaritra Randimbiarison

And the 4th post. All on bioacoustics. Other conservation technology is featured in the previous posts. Stay tuned for more.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yy_a...

YouTube video by ExplorerHome Madagascar Ranomafana & Ihofa Project | Botanic part with Rindra Harilanto

The 3rd post of the Madagascar project can be seen on this link
www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q0O3...

YouTube video by ExplorerHome Madagascar Ranomafana & Ihofa project | Introducing the team Dr. Onja Razafindratsima

And here a link to the 2nd post of the Madagascar project.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=zA5E...

Excited to share the first post of a project in Madagascar that I am part of. Follow the link for the whole post and video.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=oeSx...

Multinationals silent on destruction of prime orangutan habitat - The Understory - Rainforest Action Network Oil palm growers are illegally cutting down rainforests inside the orangutan capital of the world, but complicit multinationals have nothing to say about it.

Even as “no deforestation” pledges become the norm among the biggest companies, we are still linking illegal palm oil plantations inside the Rawa Singkil Wildlife Reserve to major brands. This shows it's not just about a nice pledge – there needs to be accountability!
www.ran.org/the-understo...

New paper on orangutan translocations has been published

Our new paper 'Outcomes of orangutan wild-to-wild translocations reveal conservation and welfare risks' is out:

AI-Driven Real-Time Monitoring of Ground-Nesting Birds: A Case Study on Curlew Detection Using YOLOv10 Effective monitoring of wildlife is critical for assessing biodiversity and ecosystem health as declines in key species often signal significant environmental changes. Birds, particularly ground-nesti...

Very happy to see this new paper out on automated curlew detection on images from mobile phone network enabled camera traps connected to the conservationAI platform www.mdpi.com/2072-4292/17...

A pity that you did not find them. I did not realise you do work in Bhutan as well. Great.

Great to see this usage of drones to monitor primates out with a permanent link.

Tshering Tobgay on LinkedIn: 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲-𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗼𝗻… 𝗥𝗲𝘃𝗼𝗹𝘂𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻𝗶𝘇𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗪𝗵𝗶𝘁𝗲-𝗯𝗲𝗹𝗹𝗶𝗲𝗱 𝗛𝗲𝗿𝗼𝗻 𝗖𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗿𝘃𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝘂𝘀𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗗𝗿𝗼𝗻𝗲 𝘁𝗲𝗰𝗵𝗻𝗼𝗹𝗼𝗴𝘆. A weeklong feasibility…

www.linkedin.com/posts/tsheri...

Great to see the conservation work for the white-bellied heron that I participated in with RSPN featured on Bhutan Broadcasting Services: www.facebook.com/share/1C4AtN...

Developing a new method using thermal drones for population surveys of the world's rarest great ape species, Pongo tapanuliensis Accurate population estimates are crucial for conservation, but surveying arboreal species can be costly and challenging. Unoccupied aerial vehicles (…

Great usage of drones with a thermal sensor to detect the Tapanuli orangutan! Congrats to this Indonesian team of researchers for doing this! www.sciencedirect.com/science/arti...

New @ljmuofficial.bsky.social MSc Wildlife Conservation prog launching September 2025 based on three pillars: RESEARCH - TECHNOLOGY - PRACTICE. Excited to have designed and to lead on this. For more info, visit: www.ljmu.ac.uk/study/course...

Towards Context-Rich Automated Biodiversity Assessments: Deriving AI-Powered Insights from Camera Trap Data Camera traps offer enormous new opportunities in ecological studies, but current automated image analysis methods often lack the contextual richness needed to support impactful conservation outcomes. ...

Our first attempt to combine computer vision models with models to obtain additional information on the species detected in images to further support conservation efforts. We aim to expand this in the future.

www.mdpi.com/1424-8220/24...

Mapping oil palm plantations and their implications on forest and great ape habitat loss in Central Africa This paper takes a retrospective look at the changes in the extent of the Congo forest and great ape habitat in the past 20 years. The data and method used in this study are novel. This produced the ...

Our new paper on oil palm in the Central African region and its impact on African apes out.

zslpublications.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/...

Development of a global thermal detection index to prioritize primate research with thermal drones - Scientific Reports Scientific Reports - Development of a global thermal detection index to prioritize primate research with thermal drones

Excited to announce the release of our latest paper in Scientific Reports: "Development of a global thermal detection index to prioritize primate research with thermal drones."

Read the paper here:
www.nature.com/articles/s41...

Check out the dashboard:
rpubs.com/Russell_Gray...

#Drones #Primates

A great write up of the camera trap and #ConservationAI research in the Netherlands.
storymaps.arcgis.com/stories/c1bc...

Great, many thanks.

Hi Grant, can you add me as well? Best, Serge

Conservation AI on LinkedIn: #techfornature #wildliferesearch #innovationforconservation 🎉 Exciting News from Conservation AI! 🌿📸 We're thrilled to unveil the latest version of the Conservation AI Desktop App, and it’s a game-changer! 🚀 Offline…

We updated our #ConservationAI client. You can now process images on the cloud and offline (on your own computer). So when connectivity is not strong or when you have data on sensitive species you can just process locally:
www.linkedin.com/posts/conser...

Global mapping of oil palm planting year from 1990 to 2021 Abstract. Oil palm is a controversial crop, primarily because it is associated with negative environmental impacts such as tropical deforestation. Mapping the crop and its characteristics, such as age...

A hopefully useful paper on oil palm plantations globally was recently published. It presents a global oil palm extent layer for the year 2021 and the planting-year layer from 1990 to 2021. #palmoil

essd.copernicus.org/articles/16/...

Harnessing Artificial Intelligence for Wildlife Conservation The rapid decline in global biodiversity demands innovative conservation strategies. This paper examines the use of artificial intelligence (AI) in wildlife conservation, focusing on the Conservation ...

I am happy to share our latest publication on our #conservationAI platform that supports automated detection and classification of animals in camera trap and drone data. Register and give it a go! @ljmubiocon.bsky.social @ljmuimpact.bsky.social
www.mdpi.com/2673-7159/4/...