Burung Indonesia: Technology Helps Conservation Works and Collaborations
Rapid technological development during the 21st century has positively impacted many sectors, including conservation. Our grantee for Taluditi Forest in Gorontalo province, northern Sulawesi, Burung Indonesia, has used a platform called Kobotoolbox to help with digital-based biodiversity monitoring activities.
To celebrate World Wildlife Day, Burung Indonesia collaborated with several environmental conservation organizations to organize a “Connecting People and Planet” event on 9th March. This was attended by university students and conservation activists, and aimed to provide opportunities to exchange experiences in implementing technology in conservation.
During the event, the Senior Conservation Planner of Burung Indonesia (BI), Lalu Abdi Wirastami, explained how they have used the Kobotoolbox since 2017. Starting with Mbeliling Landscape in West Manggarai, Flores Island, for ecosystem service monitoring called Pemantauan Layanan Alam (PLA). PLA is a forest and biodiversity monitoring tool adopted from Birdlife’s Low Key Monitoring tool. While the Low Key Monitoring tool monitors only general biodiversity threats, the PLA adds specific components for measuring specific ecosystem services, such as water sources or springs.
Successful PLA implementation in Mbeliling Landscape was then replicated in other projects of Burung Indonesia and adopted accordingly. In Java Island, the PLA was adopted as “AMATI SEKITAR (Observe Our Surrounding)” and “AMATI DESA (Observe Our Village)”. AMATI SEKITAR is a digital-based monitoring tool that can be used by urban communities to record, collect, and track bird observation data. It is an open-access tool for raising awareness of the general public regarding urban birds and engaging them as citizen scientists. AMATI DESA is a digital-based monitoring tool that can be used by villagers to record, collect, send, and track village biodiversity and natural resources, e.g. bio-indicator wildlife such as birds and mammals, village natural resource potentials, habitat structure, potential threats, as well as biodiversity that are familiar to the community.
Currently, BI is developing the technology for monitoring illegal parrot poaching in Halmahera Island in North Maluku, collaborative forest monitoring and mangrove ecosystem in Gorontalo, forest and coastal areas monitoring in Peling Island in Central Sulawesi, as well as monitoring of Sahendaruman forest in North Sulawesi.
In BI experience, Kobotoolbox has allowed efficient and effective forest and biodiversity monitoring. Technology enables an integrated collection of data and information and opens information access for conservation activists and enthusiasts. With this capacity, the technology can also connect data and information providers with users to collaborate to succeed in conservation goals.
FCF's Taluditi Forest is in a cocoa, coconut, palm oil landscape and needs funding.