The new solution combines IBM’s sustainability and technology expertise with WWF’s extensive experience in conservation to improve elephant tracking using AI-powered visual inspections and support the accurate identification of individual elephants from camera trap photos. The goal of this solution is to support important conservation efforts for African forest elephants, which have been shown to increase carbon storage in their forest habitats.
In the future, this technology could also be used by organizations to determine the financial value of African forest elephants’ services to nature (NCP), such as their carbon sequestration “services,” and to recognize the important role they play in maintaining healthy ecosystems.
The African forest elephant has a
By leveraging the power of technology to track and value natural capital, companies can explore new opportunities to support climate change mitigation efforts while identifying new sustainable financial investments.
“At IBM, we strive to have a lasting, positive impact on business, our environment and the communities in which we work and live. Our collaboration with WWF represents a significant step forward in this effort. By combining our expertise in technology and sustainability with WWF’s conservation expertise, we aim to harness the power of technology to create a more sustainable future.” – Oday Abbosh, Head of Global Sustainability Services, IBM Consulting
As part of this collaboration, IBM Consulting has been exploring innovation opportunities with WWF, aligning WWF’s conservation initiatives with IBM’s sustainability and technology expertise. This collaboration leverages IBM’s own software, IBM Maximo Visual Inspection (MVI). The solution leverages MVI’s AI-powered visual inspection and modeling capabilities and aims to analyze images from camera traps and films to more accurately identify individual African forest elephants. Currently, the use case is focused on head and tusk-based image recognition, similar to a fingerprint in humans.
“Our technology will play a critical role in streamlining the process of identifying and recording individual elephants. This is an exciting new application of IBM software that, combined with our consulting services and WWF’s extensive knowledge of the natural world, can help find new ways to accelerate organizations’ sustainability efforts.” – Kendra Dekeyrel, Vice President of ESG and Asset Management at IBM
In addition, the two organizations plan to use IBM Environmental Intelligence to identify above-ground biomass and vegetation levels in specific areas where the elephants are found. This will allow the future locations of the elephants to be more accurately predicted to better quantify the NCP services they provide. Ultimately, this will aid the process of quantifying and tokenizing the value of the carbon services provided by African forest elephants and provide organizations with insights they can use to further advance their sustainability efforts.
Harnessing the power of natural capital for sustainability
IBM and WWF are committed to exploring innovative products and services that help companies leverage natural capital to accelerate their sustainability progress.
The term natural capital refers to the world’s stocks of natural resources, including geology, soil, air, water and all wildlife. These natural resources provide a range of ecosystem services and NCPs that enable nature to contribute to human well-being in direct and indirect ways.
For example, a single African forest elephant roaming freely in its natural habitat can increase the forest’s net carbon sequestration capacity by nearly 250 hectares. This is equivalent to removing the emissions of 2,047 cars from the atmosphere in one year. According to the International Monetary Fund (IMF), this can be worth up to
“Counting African forest elephants is both difficult and costly. The logistics are complex and the resulting population numbers are not precise. The ability to identify individual elephants in camera trap images using AI could be a game changer. With AI, we will be able to monitor individual animals spatially and temporally, giving us more robust and detailed population estimates and enabling performance-based conservation payments such as wildlife credits. The spatial data will also show us where these elephants are moving – allowing us to protect these wildlife corridors.” – Dr. Thomas Breuer, WWF Germany – Coordinator African Forest Elephants
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Media contact:
Lily O’Brien
IBM
[email protected]
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Source: IBM
