In order to protect and conserve areas, to leverage digital technology to help achieve global biodiversity goals, Huawei and IUCN outlined a vision on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of World Environment Day……!! Where, the Smart Protected Areas White Paper was launched, jointly developed by Huawei, IUCN China, and the Chinese Academy of Forestry, to share the blueprint for building smart protected areas, based on experience from China’s protected areas.
Huawei, IUCN, and Global partners highlight Nature Protection
Understanding how human activities may impact the distribution, behaviors, and seasonal trends of species, needs extensive data to attain given remote and hard-to-access areas. Data from the prior day’s collection and research efforts relied on scientists going into the field to install camera traps to capture images.
Cameras needed to be maintained, batteries replaced, and their memory cards replaced and analyzed; time – and labor-intensive processes frequently resulted in data and images that were several months old. Implementing cloud computing, IoT, mobile Internet, big data, and AI enables real-time data acquisition and interaction improving smart sensing, analysis, and management of species protection and area-based conservation efforts.
An algorithm was developed and trained to help identify the different species, especially the jaguar, and to date, the team has identified 119 species, including 5 individual jaguars. Huawei partners with IUCN, C-Minds, Polytechnic University of Yucatan, Rainforest Connection, and the local community of Dzilam has collected more than 30,000 photos, 550,000 audio recordings, and numerous video clips of wild animals.
Dr. Grethel Aguilar, Deputy Director General for IUCN, said:
“We have gained a lot in the past three years of cooperation, during which time Huawei has worked with us to demonstrate the responsible use of new technologies in protecting nature. IUCN looks forward to longer-term collaboration with Huawei as a tech leader to help achieve global goals such as the target to conserve at least 30% of the Earth’s land and water by 2030.”
The aim of the Smart Protected Areas White Paper
The primary aim of the Smart Protected Areas White Paper is to realize the effective conservation of protected areas and the sustainable management of natural resources. Based on this target, the white paper identifies seven major scenarios, including ecological protection and restoration, resource management, and scientific research amongst others.
In these identified scenarios, four key capabilities need to be implemented, which include comprehensive, multi-dimensional ecological sensing, integrated multi-network communications that can adapt to complex terrain and intelligent analysis that can process massive amounts of data from multiple sources.
Additionally, the capability to apply analytical results to the operations and management of protected areas. This blueprint proposes a comprehensive solution architecture for smart protected areas based on the latest developments in digital technology.
Tao Jingwen, Huawei’s Director of the Board and Chairman of the Corporate Sustainable Development (CSD) Committee said:
“Biodiversity loss and climate change are two interrelated global environmental crises that require coordinated responses. While protecting nature, science and technology can also help thousands of industries with green development and better cope with climate change.”
Peng Song, Senior Vice President and President of Huawei’s ICT Strategy & Marketing Department said.
“The Earth is our only home. Digital technologies can help protect nature reserves more effectively and promote the sustainable management of natural resources. Our original intention is, to sum up the practice of science and technology in helping protect nature. Also, to work with partners to promote the intelligent construction of more nature reserves.”
More than half of the world’s GDP relies on nature and the services it provides
According to the WEF’s New Nature Economy Report, more than half of the world’s GDP, about US$44 trillion, relies on nature and the services it provides. However, climate change and biodiversity loss are threatening the survival and sustainable development of humanity. Also, a new nature economy could generate up to $10.1 trillion in annual business value and create 395 million jobs by 2030.
So, the summit brought together TECH ALL partners, including the Yucatan state government of Mexico, the Mexican innovation agency C Minds, IUCN China, WWF Italy, Rainforest Connection, and Shandong Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve in the context of exploring the future potential of smart nature conservation.
