Technology for Environmental Impact
Technology today has more potential than ever to tackle our urgent environmental challenges. Advances in processing power and data resolution allow us to digest far more data than ever before; at the same time, innovations in global connectivity and data collection allow us to capture unimaginably large amounts of data, and are changing our definition of what a scientist is. It’s an incredibly exciting time to be in the field, but at the same time, tech interventions can — and have — caused incredible amounts of harm. They take thoughtful planning and monitoring to be implemented successfully.
It’s time to disrupt the way we view conservation, and the solutions possible. Conservationists can be technology leaders – and, in fact, they need to be tech leaders to tackle the growing sophistication of threats to nature.
By completing this module, you will:
- Understand how a variety of technologies can be used to aid in conservation.
- Creatively apply new technologies to conservation challenges.
- Analyze the considerations and decision points needed to implement an ethical and successful conservation technology intervention.
The materials in this module can be downloaded here, and guidance on how to use this toolkit is here.
Course Content
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Lesson 1: The Role of Tech: Opportunities and Pitfalls
Technology enhances our ability to understand and instigate change within systems. In this lesson, we explore the different levels of insight and influence that technology can help us have within a natural system. helping us address the environmental crisis, and what could (and can’t) it help us do?
- The Role of Tech: Introduction
- Technology for Conservation: Getting Started
- What can tech do?
- Technology we love
- What Tech Can Do: Technology Applications for the SDGS
- The landscape of Tech for Environmental Impact and Illustrative Example: Invasive Lionfish control
- Conservation Technology to Protect Wildlife & Ecosystems
- Ways to influence a problem
- Trends in tech
- Shortcomings of these trends
- Pitfalls of technology
- The 21st Century Threat to Wildlife is “Cyberpoaching”
- Map your tech
- Assignment: Scope your technology
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Lesson 2: Ethical and Impactful Tech
In this lesson, we’ll dig deep into the design of your tech and some key considerations as you think about how it will be deployed. Beyond just considering the physical environment that a technology is deployed in, we need to design for the political, cultural, and social environment that a technology will work within.
- Ethical and Impactful Tech: Introduction
- Using data to drive change: DNA tech to Protect Pangolins
- Data madlib
- Collecting impactful data
- Data ethics & sovereignty
- The Data Ethics Canvas
- Collaborative conservation
- How to Build a Resilient Future Using Ancient Wisdom
- The Tarot Cards of Tech
- Considering Context
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Lesson 3: The Lifetime of a Technology
In this lesson, we’ll look at what needs to be considered over the lifetime of a tech intervention. How will the tech scale and last? How will it be retired? What is the tech’s long-term future?
- The Lifetime of a Technology: Introduction
- Evolving to meet changing needs
- Tracking wildlife: Risk management and unintended consequences
- The lifecycle of technology
- Your tech’s lifecycle
- Addressing the Problem of Scale in Conservation
- Scaling: Strategies and examples
- Building communities to achieve massive scale
- Envisioning the future
- Tech Roadmap
- Pitch your tech
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