Shah Selbe is a rocket scientist who put his engineering skills into building a lab that uses open-source technologies to empower local communities to solve conservation challenges.

His team has been deploying technologies like drones, sensor networks, smartphone apps, and acoustic buoys to monitor protected areas, wildlife, and biodiversity.

But their big news is the launch of the open-source hardware and online platform FieldKit that anyone can use to deploy a local sensing network and mesh that with remote sensing data for real-time ecosystem monitoring: he joins us to discuss its potential plus the conservation tech he’s currently most excited about.

Here’s this episode’s top news:

• China beefs up wildlife trade ban as COVID-19 outbreak intensifies
• ‘Out of control’: Unprecedented fires ravage Brazil’s Pantanal wetlands
• Camera traps confirm presence of lowland gorillas in central mainland Equatorial Guinea for first time in over a decade

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