AWARD YEAR
2017
CATEGORY
Community
GOALS
Life On Land
KEYWORDS
saving endangered species, wildlife monitoring, rescue operation
COUNTRY
United Kingdom
DESIGNED BY
Professor Serge Wich from LJMU's School of Natural Sciences and Psychology and founder of conservationdrones.org.
WEBSITE
https://phys.org/news/2017-02-solution-endangered-species.html
astrophysics-ecology drone
The world's first astrophysics-ecology drone project
"As an 'eye in the sky', conservation drones are helping the fight against illegal deforesting, poaching and habitat destruction, all leading to many species being endangered, including rhinos, orang-utans, and elephants. Now, teamed with the same astrophysics analysis techniques used to find and identify objects in the far-distant Universe, we can try to do this more efficiently."
"The World Bank estimates that ecosystems provide $33 trillion every year to the global economy and biodiversity loss and consequent ecosystem collapse is one of the ten foremost dangers facing humanity. We hope this research will help tackle these problems by allowing anyone in the world to upload their aerial data and in real time get back geo-locations of anything, whether that be survivors of natural disasters, or poachers approaching endangered species, or even the size, weight and health of livestock."