AI to stop wildlife crime

The Problem

Poaching and the illegal wildlife trade have far-reaching ecological, national security, and economic consequences that are undermining decades of conservation and development gains. The black market for illegal wildlife products is worth an estimated $19 billion a year in value. Surging consumer demand has pushed market prices to record levels at a time when the internet provides an ideal marketplace—anonymous, lightly regulated, always "on"—for the buying and selling of illegal wildlife products. Wildlife trafficking is pushing many animals, including species of elephants, tigers, rhinos, pangolins, turtles, sharks, and parrots, towards extinction. The illegal ivory trade increased by nearly 300 percent from 1998 to 2011. Even more dramatically, the number of rhinos poached annually increased more than 9000 percent from 13 in 2007 to a staggering 1,215 in 2014. The illegal trade in wildlife also undermines national security and economic development. Wildlife trafficking offers greater profit and lower risk of detection and prosecution than other forms of illicit trade, and has attracted transnational criminal networks, some with ties to forced labor and human trafficking. Heavily armed poachers and sophisticated criminal syndicates exploit limited law-enforcement capacity and corrupt officials with bribes and other favors, particularly in less stable or secure economies.

Our Proposal

We are developing an innovative secured, web-based interface that leverages the power of machine learning with UAVs, thermal cameras, wildlife tracking tags to identify humans and trigger automated alerts for rangers when suspected poachers cross into parks. Our application allows rangers and protected areas managers to report timely and accurate information about poaching and other threats to biodiversity.

We Assume that...

Constraints to Overcome

The security and volatile political situation in east of the democratic republic of Congo are the biggest challenge to the success of the project.

Current Work

The project aims to reduce wildlife crime through the use of an innovative tool that combines thermal camera, UAVs and Artificial intelligence to identify humans and trigger automated alerts for rangers and protected areas managers when suspected poachers cross into parks. Our revenue will come from monthly fees paid by rangers and protected area managers to use our app and the sales of thermal camera and compatible UAVs.

Current Needs

- We need to have financial resource to cover test cost ( We are looking to raise USD 7K to cover this cost ) The funds will help us to : - 1500$ USD to purchase a thermal camera - 2000$ USD to purchase an UAV - 1000$ USD to test the AI system - 500$ USD for logistic costs - We need to hire 2 consultants in Machine Learning and data extraction. ($ 2K USD)