Innovative Technologies Saving Our Precious Endangered Animals, Part 2 of 2

In today’s program, we will show you some more new, ingenious animal conservation solutions, namely surveillance drones and an acoustic monitoring system, that also employ AI. Air Shepherd is a novel anti-poaching program initially created by the US-based non-profit, the Lindbergh Foundation, and is now run by the South African company UAV & Drone Solutions, to stop night poaching in Africa. Air Shepherd has operated in Botswana, Malawi, South Africa and Zimbabwe, and achieved remarkable initial success. Supreme Master Ching Hai: “Happily present Air Shepherd and all involved with the Shining World Compassion & Hero Award, with a loving gift of US$10,000 towards your noble work. Lots of love, praises and prayers for your success, in God’s love.” Rainforest Connection develops and promotes its low-cost, effective, and scalable acoustic monitoring plan to address illegal logging. The Rainforest Connection’s system has many advantages: The device used has great coverage; one Guardian can monitor 300 hectares of precious rainforest. Besides being cheap and easy to build, it can be rolled out with minimum resources. And its robust AI system can not only distinguish distant chainsaw sounds from abundant and similar mosquito noises but also can accurately predict logging events by detecting sounds that typically happen before a chainsaw starts up, such as parrot or gibbon alarm calls. As a result, rangers can receive alerts three minutes ahead of the tree-cutting and step in to stop the crime. Rainforest Connection has been deployed in rainforests of Africa, Asia, and South America for the prevention of illegal logging and poaching, and the achievements have been phenomenal. Supreme Master Ching Hai: “admiringly present Topher White and Rainforest Connection with the Shining World Invention Award for its forest monitoring system, with a token contribution of US$10,000 towards this animal and nature-protecting project. May the light of God shine brightly on you, with boundless blessings.”