Given my research on the symbiosis between human and nonhuman intelligence, I’m curious to see what role technology might play in serving these twin goals: conserving biodiversity and securing Indigenous land rights. In particular, an advanced form of artificial intelligence called deep-learning neural networks, able to improve its performance without being programmed, is revolutionizing the analysis of sound data from at-risk ecosystems. This acoustic monitoring, often complementing visual monitoring and sometimes replacing it, is conservation for the 21st century. Restricted access, of course, remains a perennial problem with AI—both in code-sharing and in the use of the technology itself. Governments and NGOs need to work harder to make this tool available to rapid-response teams, otherwise its promise would be wasted.
Deep-learning neural networks don’t negate the need for human vigilance; in fact, the opposite is true. Because this advanced AI can analyze sound data within seconds, it opens up a window of time for critical intervention, especially in places plagued by illegal logging and mining. The technology could hear the sounds of chainsaws or drills, and send alerts to action-ready patrols on the ground. Indigenous communities with access to this technology and able to respond instantly could be a key part of this new equation.
One of the first AI-based Indigenous conservation projects, undertaken by Cornell University, was co-developed with the Coral Gardeners, from Mo’orea, French Polynesia. Founded in 2017, this Indigenous group cultivates heat-resistant super corals and transplants them onto damaged parts of the reef. Cornell provides the software to track the sounds of the many organisms making their home here and, working also with the University of Hawaii, integrates them into a recording platform, ReefOS, a network of sensors and cameras collecting visual and acoustic data 24 hours a day. The AI-mediated soundscape tells the on-site respondents whether the reefs are starting to sound like healthy and stable reef systems, or whether additional restoration efforts are needed.
Unfortunately, this cutting-edge partnership is thrown into jeopardy by rampant encroachment on Indigenous lands, led by local politicians eager to clear the forests for industrial farming and ranching. One such politician is João Cleber Torres, mayor of São Félix do Xingu, a city that routinely posts some of the highest deforestation rates in Brazil, and where unsolved, land-related murders are just as routine.
That irony is likely to persist under the World Wildlife Fund’s 30x30 plan—to conserve 30 percent of Earth by 2030. This is being negotiated for the final draft of the U.N. Convention on Biological Diversity, to take place in Montreal this December. The top-down target could end up evicting as many as 300 million human forest-dwellers. Biden’s separate 30x30 plan, though hardly perfect, at least offers better aspirational goals. The U.S. government will respect “Tribal sovereignty.” It will “leverage resources with Tribes,” “incorporate Indigenous Traditional Ecological Knowledge into decision-making,” and “take an inclusive and collaborative approach to the stewardship of land and water resources.”
Artificial intelligence is an integral part of this partnership. Especially telling was the presence of the Allen Institute for AI at this year’s Our Ocean Conference, co-hosted by the U.S. and the Republic of Palau, bringing Indigenous-AI conservation to a whole new level. The conference showed that AI can perform specific tasks beneficial to island nations, like tracking illegal fishing that depletes fish stocks and threatens local livelihood. More generally, AI, if carefully designed and rigorously tested before being deployed in the field, can be a useful tool for analyzing ocean data, from the songs of humpback whales to the properties of microplastics. The $20 million commitment from the National Science Foundation to create an AI Institute for climate and coastal oceanography raises a lot of hopes. However, competing demands for these funds also suggests that it won’t all be smooth sailing. It’s going to take some doing to integrate Indigenous conservation with the ocean-based blue economy that’s clearly driving the research agenda.
This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.
