Pandas and leopards will not disappear: let's thank Huawei

 

Our life without technology is unimaginable. We use the latest smartphones and computers every day, and we can connect in seconds from anywhere in the world. The application of technology offers many advantages. One, perhaps less well known, is that wildlife can be better protected. Technology and artificial intelligence offer innovative solutions to save pandas, leopards and other endangered species. Experts predict that digital technology will play a vital role in biodiversity conservation, and today it can save endangered species and help scientists and naturalists do their daily work.

Digital panda protection system

Since 1961 The World Wildlife Fund chose the panda as its logo, and the bear with its black and white fur became an international symbol of animal protection. The biggest threat to these wild animal populations is habitat loss: pandas eat bamboo, which has made them vulnerable to changes in their environment, with rapid urban growth in China over the past century and the pandas' habitat shrinking from what it once was. Although about 54% of the wild nature that is home to pandas is protected, these areas suffer from natural disasters such as forest fires. In order to protect panda habitats, in 2021 In February, a collaboration between the Sichuan Forestry and Grassland Administration and the technology company Huawei launched a digital system,

The system shares data received from 596 cameras, 45 infrared cameras, unmanned aerial vehicles and satellites, and the information is stored in the cloud system. Conservationists and naturalists use this data to monitor, track and study wildlife, and detect fires. The cameras are located in remote areas with limited or no electricity, so they run on solar power and microwave transmission technology, eliminating the need for cables. According to information provided by Huawei, the system supports 140,000 foresters, grassland managers, conservationists and researchers. Huawei says the system detected 651 forest fire outbreaks in the first five months of operation, representing a 71.6 percent reduction in the number of forest fires compared to the same period last year.

Artificial intelligence helps save leopards

Snow leopards running in the mountains are perfectly camouflaged by gray-black spots, so it is extremely difficult to see them with the naked eye. Scientists have installed infrared cameras in the habitats of snow leopards and monitor these animals without disturbing their lives. Photos and videos of the animal are taken under the influence of infrared rays. However, this research method requires a lot of human labor, with researchers having to wait hours for an animal to come into view of the cameras. Later, you need to remove the memory cards and transfer the images to hard drives for further analysis. This process is complicated by the fact that leopards tend to live in areas with harsh natural conditions that are difficult to access and lack good communications to transmit images to research centers. To view the data, researchers have to manually identify each leopard themselves. And this is especially difficult when a large number of photos and videos are collected during the year, in addition, leopards only walk at night or after dark. In an effort to help scientists preserve biodiversity, the company Huawei offers the use of its artificial intelligence (computational) system MindSpore, which allows the automatic review of camera data. Compared to manual image review, everything is much faster: it takes two and a half days to review 500,000 photos. Although the final results have yet to be verified by scientists, artificial intelligence significantly shortens the time needed to achieve their goals. Properly programmed, the equipment can distinguish 10 species and subspecies of animals, including the snow leopard, with 95 percent accuracy.

 "It's amazing to see how scientists and researchers are using Huawei's technology solutions to implement a variety of wildlife protection and animal welfare measures, thereby encouraging reflection on the human-made or unwitting impact on the environment." As technologies improve, they contribute more and more significantly to the preservation of biological diversity," said Inese Šuļžanoka , head of communications at Huawei Technologies Latvia .