Technologies 4.0 to protect biodiversity

Technology 4.0 has a great margin of action to improve the management and protection of the most sensitive natural areas and their biodiversity, says Gustavo Copelmayer. It is about generating multidisciplinary, updatable tools and applications that integrate different data, capable of handling massive volumes of information and thus achieving substantial results.

These technologies can be oriented to the control of invasive species in fauna, to the detection of irregular or illegal activities (poachers, polluting landfills in rivers, abandonment of waste, etc.), to the prevention or early detection of fires or floods, as well as control of access to especially sensitive areas, monitoring of protected species, verification of air and water quality, among others.

Drones are already used for monitoring and extinguishing fires, says Gustavo Copelmayer. The high-resolution and thermographic cameras, make it possible to monitor potential sources of fire, detect hot spots and their proximity to high-risk areas, or carry out surveillance at night or in poor visibility conditions.

Some of the technological developments are being created by the Eeiko project, in which citizens provide data on some animal species. The APP technology allows monitoring of some incidents and environmental data in real time; in the same way, the application of GPS technology is also used to monitor and protect birds along with the Identi-Flight project by placing cameras in ecological parks.