Forest and habitat monitoring using innovative technologies II

Since the late 1970s, the BirdLife Partnership has been working collectively to identify, document and protect places on the Earth with the greatest significance for the conservation of the world’s birds. As a result, over 13,000 Important Bird and Biodiversity Areas (IBAs) have been identified. 

However, we lack comprehensive monitoring of the condition of these sites, with an increasing number of IBAs under threat from damaging development – the majority of which appears to be poorly planned and does not take environmental values into account. Sites face a wide range of problems, which require an equally wide range of solutions. 

The demonstration cases in Spain and Indonesia show how citizens can be involved in monitoring threats to biodiversity, habitats and people, using tools such as Natura Alert, a mobile and web app that enables citizens to act and report on these sites in order to prevent further damage or loss to these crucial areas. Screenshots from the Natura Alert web app are shown in Figure 1. 

The key objectives of these demonstration cases are to: 

• Improve the monitoring of IBAs, KBAs and Natura 2000 sites and reduce their degradation 
• Engage local communities in habitat monitoring, threat identification and reporting 
• Empower locals to participate in the decision making 
• Make monitoring more cost effective

Natura Alert is being tested in Spain and Indonesia, thanks to the volunteer network of two BirdLife partners: SEO/BirdLife and Burung. While the Spanish volunteers are focusing on threats to birds and habitats within IBAs and Natura 2000 sites, the Indonesian communities are validating alerts from satellite-image analysis of forest change on Flores island. 

Citizen observations trigger real-time alerts to national and regional IBA/KBA coordinators at BirdLife International, who will ensure that the data are of high quality and produce regional and global monitoring assessments that could help to monitor some indicators from the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD). 

Also, researchers and practitioners around the globe can benefit from this type of data, as well as institutions and stakeholders from the private sector willing to make better decisions based on high quality data via the Integrated Biodiversity Assessment Tool (IBAT). 

This report describes the main results and challenges of the Habitat and Forest Monitoring pilots.