MS. EILPERIN: Hello, and welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Juliet Eilperin, the deputy climate and environment editor for The Washington Post.

As part of our “This is Climate” series, we’re going to discuss conservation, at home here in the United States and abroad, and the efforts that are underway to protect land and water systems amid growing climate threats.

Today we start with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management director, Tracy Stone-Manning. Director Stone-Manning, welcome to Washington Post Live.

MS. STONE-MANNING: Thanks so much.

MS. EILPERIN: Excellent.

So the Bureau of Land Management is known as the nation’s landlord. You oversee roughly a tenth of the nation’s land mass in your job, and I wanted to start by asking you about what you were seeing on the ground in terms of the climate threat. When we’re talking about record-breaking temperatures, wildfires, droughts, how would you describe the situation in terms of the land that the BLM oversees?

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah. Thanks for the question, Juliet. We oversee 245 million acres, and every land manager will tell you that climate change is already happening. It’s already impacting our public lands. We see it in pretty obvious ways, through unprecedented wildfire, bigger, hotter, running longer than before, that then brings in things like non-native grasses like cheatgrass that completely can take over. There’s a 1,200-year drought in the Southwest.

But, you know, we see the indicators of stress in smaller ways as well, plants blooming at different times of the year and so not being in sync with their pollinators, warmer waters in our streams affecting trout. All of this adds up to there being a real sense of urgency for our work and the solutions that we’re trying to advance.

MS. EILPERIN: And according to the White House, President Biden’s Infrastructure Law and the Inflation Reduction Act has invested more than $10 billion in conservation initiatives. That’s more than any other modern president. Could you explain how that money is being used today across the country?

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah, you bet. The Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law are game changers for us. We now have the funds to put people to work on our public lands, investing in those public lands to restore them, right? Restoration is such an important part of the work now to make lands healthier, more resilient so that wildlife, fish have the ability to withstand the changes that are coming.

I like to talk about it in simple ways, like we need to put wildlife acres back on the board, and through this once-in-a-generation funding, we really have the opportunity to do that. We’re investing specifically in 21 restoration landscapes across 11 Western states, and that investment, I can’t stress enough how profoundly important it is. It will enable us to ensure that we’ll–restoration activities can work for years to come.

MS. EILPERIN: And the White House says that these investments will help meet the president’s goal that he set during the first week of office of conserving at least 30 percent of U.S. lands and waters by 2030. Where does the country stand right now in terms of numbers and meeting that target?

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah. So the America the Beautiful Initiative recognizes that climate change and biodiversity, those two crises that we are facing, they are interconnected. And the Bureau of Land Management has two ways to support it. First, protect the very best fish and wildlife habitat that’s out there; and second, restore the habitat that’s needed, right?

And on the first part, protection, the way to do that is to work in places where there’s locally-led, collaborative voices on the ground supporting the work. So it was incredible to see the president be able to lift up those voices in two different instances in this first term so far when he proclaimed two national monuments on Bureau of Land Management lands at the Grand Canyon and in Southern Nevada at a place called Avi Kwa Ame. That’s over a million acres of protection.

And then in addition to that, we’re still really focused on doing that restoration work that we were just touching on. We need to protect the best of our lands and restore the rest.

MS. EILPERIN: And so you obviously identified two of the biggest high-profile announcements that the president has made in terms of protections. So one thing is that so with that, where–so how close are we to the 30 percent that’s withstanding?

MS. STONE-MANNING: So the Department of Interior is working on crunching those numbers, I think, as we speak, and I think we can expect some announcements soon about where we are. Our colleagues at USGS are working on a map and a lot of data, and here at the Bureau, we are keeping our heads down and working every day to do our part.

MS. EILPERIN: And are there any small–obviously, you know, the Avi Kwa Ame and the Grand Canyon are huge conservation protections. Are there any small areas that have been protected, that they might not shift the number that much, but they’ll make a difference in terms of lands, again, under your agency where things have changed?

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah, sure. So through our land management planning processes, not to sound bureaucratic, but we do these things called “resource management plans.” And they last a good 10 or 20 years. Each of those are very specific to the place that–to the places on the map, right, and so there are tools that we can use to do protections of the landscape within those planning processes, and we’re working on those. And they vary from–everything from backcountry conservation areas to areas of critical environmental concern, and they’re really tailored to the ground. And that’s, I think, what makes conservation durable is when it’s really tailored to the ground.

MS. EILPERIN: And just to follow up on that, as I know you’re familiar, right now the Biden administration is facing backlash in Wyoming for one of these regional management plans that would prioritize conservation and renewable energy, to some extent, over fossil fuel extraction, which obviously has been an emphasis of the Bureau of Land Management in the past and in how this particular part of Wyoming has developed. Now, obviously, it will be months, if not longer than that, until these plans are finalized, and there’s an upcoming presidential election. So we’ll have to see the outcome of that. How does that affect the work that the Bureau of Land Management does as it’s really trying to reshape how we use our public lands out West?

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah. So our public lands are remarkable, right? It’s this incredible thing that the country has, that we own these lands in common, and Americans love and value them. And anytime that people really love something and value something, there tends to be opinions.

But I also believe we all want the same thing. We want healthy public lands. We want wildlife to endure for generations to come. We want clean air, clean water, and so when we–when we sit down and look at maps and pore over them and pore over the language that we’re proposing in these plans, that’s when we can get into a real specific conversation about what people agree with and what they don’t. So that’s how we–that’s how we find our way through. We talk about specifics, and we talk and listen very carefully to the specifics of what people want and don’t want and how that matches up with the science and the law.

MS. EILPERIN: And what are the biggest challenges or obstacles that you’ve encountered so far as you’re trying to advance this 30 by 30 goal, would you say?

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah. I think the biggest obstacle in our work is the size, the size of the Bureau, right? When we came in, we had vacancy rates that were just not acceptable for the Bureau or for the American people. We’ve been working really hard. It’s been a priority of mine to build up our staff, and through the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, we now have dozens and dozens of positions that we can bring to bear on the work that we need to do to advance renewable energy, to advance conservation.

MS. EILPERIN: And one of the most high-profile environmental pledges that the president has not delivered on is his vow to halt all new oil and gas drilling on federal lands and waters, and that, of course, intersects with the Bureau of Land Management’s authority. Now, the Interior Department has approved thousands of new permits to drill, whether it’s in the National Petroleum Reserve in Alaska or in the Permian Basin, since the President took office, although it looks like, you know, judging by the rate of the permitting process, it’s really dropped off some this year compared to the first couple years before that of the administration. So I’m wondering if you could–we could just talk about this for a minute. So one of them is that. Has there been any shift on the part of the agency in terms of the rate of permitting and how to scale back some of the fossil fuel extraction on shore in the–you know, say in the last year? Could you elaborate a bit?

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah, sure. Thanks for the question. So I think one of the biggest things that we’re doing is the Bureau is modernizing our oil and gas leasing regulations, updating what we charge for the oil–we all own it in common as Americans–and then also ensuring that our bonding rates are appropriate.

Some of these fiscal things haven’t been updated in 100 years. So we’re modernizing the program as we shift towards the renewable energy and clean energy economy that the president has asked us to reach.

MS. EILPERIN: And then in terms of–can you explain–it looks like, for example, right now the Bureau is on track to approve roughly half the number of permits that it did in the preceding two years. What accounts for that?

MS. STONE-MANNING: So, you know, we’re a nation of laws, right, and our job is to implement the law. And there are a lot of valid existing rights out there on the landscape. So when a company comes to us and says we’d like to–we’d like to permit on this lease that we’ve had for decades, we take the steps to issue the permit and make sure that we’re doing so in a responsible way as possible. And so, you know, we’ve been doing that work, day in and day out.

MS. EILPERIN: And then in terms of, as you just alluded to, one of the things that’s come up when this issue has arisen about whether the administration can halt all oil and gas permits is this legal question, that there’s a question of whether, you know, given the way current U.S. law is, the administration does have an obligation and the federal government has an obligation to allow the extraction of fossil fuels. Do you think that there is a point where the U.S. could get to where the Bureau–a future Bureau of Land Management under another president down the line would not be issuing these permits, not because of–you know, there’s obviously a question of market forces and what the demand for oil and gas will disappear at some point, but is there any other scenario, barring a major revision to the law, where you could see the federal government not issuing these permits?

MS. STONE-MANNING: You know, again, we’re a nation of laws, and we have this great system that our Founding Fathers set up for us, right, the three branches. So Congress could choose to step up and change the laws.

Currently, we’re implementing the Mineral Leasing Act of 1920. Lots has changed since 1920. And we’re doing so in what we believe is a really balanced and responsible and appropriate way. We are now issuing leases that are tailored towards where there’s high potential for oil, and only there, we are trying to avoid speculation. We are trying to ensure that we protect wildlife habitat and cultural resources as we do our leasing. And I think the numbers that you see now, today, reflect that balanced and responsible approach.

MS. EILPERIN: And are there other ways where the Bureau of Land Management is addressing the impacts of climate change that you’d point to beyond 30 by 30?

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah. We are working on the something called the “Public Lands Rule,” which I think has the ability to really be transformative in how we manage public lands in the 21st century. We have regulations around oil and gas. We have regulations around grazing, around timber, around all the things that we do. I like to say the BLM does all the things.

But what we have not yet put regulations around is the conservation side of our mission, and the Public Lands Rule will do that. And when we do that, we ensure that conservation and ensuring that we are taking care of the health of our lands so that we can deliver public lands that are healthy into the future. That’s what this rule is going to be able to do. It’s going to put conservation on an equal footing with the rest of our multiple uses. I’m really excited about it.

MS. EILPERIN: Got it. And when you think about what the future of conservation is in terms of what tools the conservationists and scientists need, what does that look like, and to what extent can the government help with that, even if it’s not something specifically that the Bureau of Land Management would do in its day-to-day operations?

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah. So the role of government is really important, right? We manage one in ten acres in this country. Our role is really important to the future of the health of our clean air and clean water and wildlife. You know, government matters. When you turn on your tap and clean water comes out, it’s not happenstance that made that so right? It’s good governing.

And so I think we need government at all levels working on this issue, but we also need people, people in their everyday lives, right? It’s been that combination of government and people working to ensure we protect these places we hold so dear that has made us successful as a country so far, and that’s what’s going to make us successful going forward. We’re going to have to make sure that that work is backed by science and backed by data.

The landscape is changing before our very eyes. We have modeling to tell us what we think it’s going to be, but we don’t know for sure what it’s going to be, right? So we need to bring some humility to the work, and we need to bring really good science and really good monitoring to the work on a daily basis so that we can get the feedback from nature that we need to ensure that we are doing all we can to protect these resources that are just so important to everyone.

MS. EILPERIN: One of the things that I certainly have been struck by in terms of traveling to some of these vast, largely still wild lands is how enforcement is a critical need, and as you kind of alluded to before, there’s been some lack of staffing resources. So, for example, I was out at Bears Ears National Monument when it was under consideration for protection. At that point, BLM had something like two enforcement officers who were responsible for all of Southern Utah, and it was a real challenge to kind of address the issue of looting and vandalism and things like that. And, of course, one of the ironies is when the president recognizes a place as special, then, in fact, even more people come to it, and I’m wondering if you could just talk a little about how you’ve navigated that challenge, which certainly is something that I imagine you’ve been looking at.

MS. STONE-MANNING: Yeah, I have. And for your readers and viewers who don’t know, these lands–you know. You’ve been there. They’re amazing, and I really hope that folks get out to see them. Eighty million people came to public lands last year to sort of touch nature and to find solace and to play and to put food in their freezer. This is just a remarkable asset that we have, and we really do need to protect it through law enforcement.

We don’t have enough law enforcement rangers. They’re amazing. We have 250 of them for 245 million acres. Everybody can do that math, right? That’s not–it’s not enough. So we are prioritizing growing that, growing that body of work, and in the meantime, we’re doing things like, yes, shifting more people to Southern Utah because more people are coming, so more law enforcement officers, and wherever we can, partnering with our local sheriff’s offices. They are eyes and ears on the ground that are just an invaluable resource for us, and so that really helps in our work as well.

MS. EILPERIN: Well, we’ll continue to follow this important story. Director Stone-Manning, thank you for joining us here on Washington Post Live.

MS. STONE-MANNING: Juliet, it’s been an honor and a pleasure and nice to be with you. Thanks so much.

MS. EILPERIN: Excellent. Next time we’ll do it in person.

And thanks to all of you for joining. Please stay with us during–for the next segment. Thank you.

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MS. WONG: Hi there, and welcome. My name is Lana Wong, and I’m a founding member of the diverse women moderators’ bureau, Moderate the Panel.

Today I’m excited to speak with the president and founder of Esri, Jack Dangermond. Jack and his wife founded–Jack and his wife, Laura, founded Esri in 1969 with a vision that geographic analysis and computer mapping could help us design a better future. That vision combined with an unwavering belief that people and planet are inextricably linked has guided Esri in its journey to create cutting-edge GIS software that’s used by government, business, and the nonprofit sectors to solve some of the world’s most complex problems, including protection of threatened species, habitats, biodiversity, and more. A graduate of Harvard’s Graduate School of Design, Jack has not one, not two, but 14 honorary degrees for his contributions to geography, environmental science, planning, and GIS.

Welcome, Jack, and thank you for joining us today. Let’s just dive straight in. Why is conservation of natural areas so important today?

MR. DANGERMOND: I think you already said it. It’s actually we are living beings. We live in a natural world. We’re all interconnected with nature, and as we lose parts of nature, as we reduce biodiversity on the planet, we’re putting ourselves at risk. Natural world provides us air and water and food. So keeping these geographies protected in various levels with rich biodiversity is very important for our existence in our future, for our children, for everyone.

Look, everybody is going to have to do everything they possibly can, every individual, getting aware about this, planting trees, protecting areas, advocating conservation. Every institution, corporations, public and private, and us as a society at the global level have to both realize that we’re at a very–it’s late in the day. It’s not dark yet, but we’re at a very fragile time. We need to move on conservation aggressively everywhere.

MS. WONG: Absolutely. And so how does mapping technology fit into all of this? Why is it uniquely powerful for biodiversity and conservation work?

MR. DANGERMOND: Well, geography, the science of our world, is represented through maps, and you can hardly imagine doing conservation or planning work without being able to use a map. It allows us to bring information together, overlay it, look at relationships, lay out ideas of the future for conservation. It’s essential.

In the digital environment, we call this “GIS,” and this is really driving so much of what we do today, both in the physical world of cities but also in the natural area. We’re seeing relationships. We’re making decisions, and we’re planning the future using these interesting maps.

Some people in conservation call this “data-driven conservation,” and it’s happening at many scales. It’s happening here in California. Our state natural resources organization is bringing all the data together to create a plan for 30 by 30, and at the national level, our Department of Interior is doing the same thing with something called “America the Beautiful,” integrating all the science, making plans, and making that available for citizen groups and agencies, private sector, public sector, to be able to make better decisions.

MS. WONG: Great. And so you just mentioned the 30 by 30 initiative, which I know you are a great advocate of, and that’s conserving 30 percent of the world’s land and water by 2030. So what is technology’s piece in all of this?

MR. DANGERMOND: Well, scientists have advocated this idea of putting major pieces aside. Ed Wilson, the famous biologist from Harvard, started it with his 50 by 50 notion. He advocated the idea of that but also said we need to figure out what 50. It isn’t just arbitrary. It has to be the areas that are high in biodiversity so we protect the most.

So GIS is the logical thing to organize all of this information and help us guide and build collaboration and communicate all of this information outwards, so lots of excitement here.

MS. WONG: Great. And can you tell us more about this concept of an environmental digital twin and how it can help conservation efforts?

MR. DANGERMOND: Yeah. GIS is actually a kind of digital twin. It represents all aspects of geography, the natural world, for example, and allows us to model it, model with data, model the processes using mathematics to look at relationships. We’re doing a lot of this these days in conservation areas. One on California coast, for example, is a living laboratory where we can do different aspects of science and share this science from scientist to scientist, model it, and see it halfway around the world in visualized map form.

I think this digital twin concept will catch on. It’s catching on in cities now, but in nature, we need to accelerate it, because it becomes an instrument for not just understanding science but also interpreting science into applications like what areas do we conserve or what do we do here to do that; in other words, stimulus response modeling.

MS. WONG: Great. And so, as you know, the UN Climate Change Conference, COP28, is around the corner, happening in a few weeks. How will conservation of nature help climate action?

MR. DANGERMOND: Well, there’s an interesting relationship between biodiverse areas and global climate change. Both of them are big issues that we’re facing as a global society. Those areas that we can serve, of course, sequester carbon. They pull carbon out of the atmosphere and put it into the ground. So they’re kind of like workhorses or factories that not only help us preserve the web of life, but they also are working for us, ecological services, so to speak.

So advocating one helps the other, and so, as we look to the future, this is a high priority. I’m sure it will be talked about at COP but also in various agencies and organizations around the world. I’m hopeful that we can turn this around by looking at conserving nature and doing everything we can to cut back on carbon emissions.

MS. WONG: Absolutely. That’s a critical call to action and one that we’ll have to wrap this conversation with. Thank you so much for your time, Jack, and thank you so much for putting your efforts and commitment to using Esri and the technology for the greater good for people and planet.

Thank you all for joining us, and my name is Lana Wong. I’m now handing it back over to The Washington Post.

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MS. EILPERIN: Welcome back. For those of you just joining us, welcome to Washington Post Live. I’m Juliet Eilperin, the deputy climate and environment editor for The Washington Post.

I’m now joined by conservation expert Sophie Maxwell. She’s the executive director of the Connected Conservation Foundation. Sophie Maxwell, welcome to Washington Post Live.

MS. MAXWELL: Thanks, Juliet, and thanks for inviting me today to talk about the tech revolution in conservation.

MS. EILPERIN: Of course. Pleasure to have you.

In the last 40 years, the world has lost almost 60 percent of its wildlife. Can you talk a little bit about what you’re seeing across the globe on this front?

MS. MAXWELL: Yeah. These are really shocking statistics, and it’s also predicted that we are going to lose one million species over the next decade. And really what we’re seeing is that ecosystems are struggling and that, you know, land use change for things like agriculture, deforestation, pollution, climate change wreaking havoc with the weather events is really kind of causing this biodiversity loss as the habitats are degraded and the species are suffering. And we really need to make a change as biodiversity is such an important part of all our natural systems and giving us the fresh water that we need, the clean air and plants and animals for food. So we must come together to make a change.

MS. EILPERIN: Your organization teams up with technology companies to help enhance conservation. Can you tell us a little bit about conservation, Connected Conservation and what it does?

MS. MAXWELL: Yeah, sure. So Connected Conservation has been going since 2015, and it really does equip those local teams on the ground with the tools they need, those who are fighting to defend wildlife every day and save species and habitats. And, you know, we are a small organization, but we are making really big impact by joining the capabilities of technology companies, donors, and local partners to equip them with the tools that they need to do their work. And we really supply with the help of our partners, such as Cisco, the Airbus Foundation, Dimension Data. We’re really providing landscape-scale technologies, such as connectivity communications, real-time sensors from the Internet of Things, so by providing low-cost, low-power sensors that provide connected networks that bring real-time data to monitor threats and help conservationists make decisions.

And we’ve been working to the 30/30 tasks and targets that you’ve been talking about, where in Montreal, 196 countries came together to agree to protect 30 percent of the planet. Technology has a massive role to play in that ambition through measuring progress against those targets and helping those on the ground meet them through protection and monitoring, and we are making tremendous progress. I’m really thrilled to say that we are now helping 29 different protected areas, mostly in Africa. Our work there is equipping them with the tools across Kenya, South Africa, Zambia, Botswana, and we now have some projects as well in the Papua New Guinea and Thailand. And we’re bringing this range of tools as well as now high-resolution satellite data as well, and it’s really helping them stop poaching, prevent human-wildlife conflict, and manage these huge landscapes that you were talking about earlier for the benefits of the communities and also the wildlife.

So when you have a healthy functioning landscape, it’s not only bringing benefits to the communities and wildlife, it is going to be taking CO2 out of the climate as well so we have healthy ecosystems providing that ecosystem service to everyone.

MS. EILPERIN: And we’re going to talk more specifically about both the technology and some of these examples on the ground, but first, you alluded to the fact that more than 190 countries have pledged to preserve 30 percent of the planet by 2030. How realistic do you think that goal is at this point, standing here on the cusp of 2024?

MS. MAXWELL: It’s very easy to say, isn’t it? But I think you’ll find that we’re in a position where those promises need to be enforced. They need to have staff on the ground, local people actually delivering these expectations, and that is done through funding and tools for those meeting those targets.

I think, you know, across Africa, there’s, what, 8,000 different parks, but most of them are paper parks. You’ll find really only kind of perhaps the top 50 tier of parks using technology to deliver impact and generate funding, and kind of, there’s a huge gap growing between those top protected areas and that next tier. And what we really need to do now is uplift that next tier of protected areas with the right tools, resources, and investments so that we can meet that 2030 target.

And, you know, it’s going to require a huge collaborative effort. I think in the introduction segment you had me talking about data sharing, but we need to be in a position where country leaders and managers can go into a system and say, how’s my 30 percent doing? Is it protected well? Are the ecosystems functioning properly? And right now, we don’t really have that data to say how species are faring and what numbers are there. We have it in siloed places, but there’s not one system that kind of aggregates it all together.

We have all the tools, but we really now need to a coordinated effort to put all that data together so we can measure it. And, you know, at COP28, we had this global stocktake against climate targets. We need to be able to do that as well against biodiversity targets too.

MS. EILPERIN: Sure. So now that brings us back to technology, and obviously, conservationists have been using things like camera traps for years, remote sensing cameras to try to detect some of these vulnerable populations of wildlife. Now we have everything from satellite imaging to artificial intelligence. Can you just talk about the evolution of technology in the conservation space?

MS. MAXWELL: Sure. Yeah. We’ve seen the modern world change before our eyes and introduce concepts such as smart cities, smart cars, smart buildings, and the conservation space, as you say, is way behind. And we’ve been working offline for a long time, and that’s because these remote areas are not connected. They don’t have mobile signal coverage, and so if you’re a conservationist working to survey wildlife, you might have to travel 15 kilometers into the bush, put a camera track there, and then go back three months later to get the data manually off an SD card.

But we are catching up. Fast forward to today, what we’re seeing is huge changes with connectivity coming from space, connectivity coming from the work that we do to really bring cloud computing and cloud services to conservation, and that is changing things rapidly, enabling data sharing and collaboration and being able to work from anywhere. So we’re really seeing the rise of satellite data, AI, connected sensors, and this kind of global connectivity which will help us catch up with everything else that’s been happening. And I think, you know, I can give you countless examples, but perhaps I’ll focus one on Kenya where we work. And thanks to the technology from Cisco and our partners and funding from the EU, what we’ve been able to do there is actually equip connectivity across 28 different protected areas, and so that Wi-Fi, high-bandwidth connectivity, as well as LoRa networks have enabled remote sensors and data from cameras, from GPS collars on wildlife, from digital radio over 3 million hectares to come into a central control room. And this is really speeding up conservation efforts.

And being able to give rangers the eyes and ears to see over hundreds of kilometers, bring it all into one system and through CCS, our integration platform, and tools such as EarthRanger, we’re really seeing the convergence of these technologies to enable smart biospheres. And smart biospheres enable those environmental intelligence to give that kind of up-to-date understanding so you can predict wildlife movements, track land-use change, look at soil and health, carbon, and the health of the climate so that if there is a climate-driven weather event such as drought, you can help manage the water and the forage resources between the communities and the species. So it’s really kind of helping to drive that kind of tech-based harmony between AI satellites and the wonders of our natural world and our planet.

MS. EILPERIN: So in terms of applying artificial intelligence at a larger scale, I assume–so, in other words, what you were just describing in terms of Kenya, that would be one example?

MS. MAXWELL: Yeah.

MS. EILPERIN: Could you maybe flesh that out a little? And is there an example where through that kind of analysis, there were changes done on the ground to really gear up and protect an area from a climate threat?

MS. MAXWELL: Yeah. I just go back to the Kenya example I’m talking about–is that, you know, Kenya is having a massive success with improving the population numbers of critically endangered black rhino in 2020 and 2022. Zero poaching was reported, and they’ve seen a 6 percent increase between 2017 and 2022 in the population numbers. And that’s fantastic considering that South Africa, Namibia, Botswana are really struggling with poaching right now. And KWS, Kenya Wildlife Service, have really kind of reported that increasing surveillance and wildlife intelligence has played a big part in that success.

We are proud to help in our small way, but really it has been a collaboration of partners coming together to equip those fantastic local resources in the ground who are risking their lives every day to defend wildlife and tackle these threats.

So one of the examples of AI use in that context is really looking at the patterns of behavior of different species. So with AI, you can look at historical data, and you can look at real-time data from the collars on the animals. So it’s really like a wildlife watchtower, whereby you might get an alert if elephants move near community cropland, or perhaps vultures are showing behavior that you recognize through AI of feeding. So it might be a rhino carcass that they’ve identified through that vulture behavior, or perhaps lions are coming near communities and staking it out. You really need to get in and intervene to ensure harm doesn’t come to both the people in that area as well as the wildlife.

So, you know, as population numbers are increasing in Africa, this kind of tech-based AI solution for really kind of making sure there’s harmony in these areas is really important.

MS. EILPERIN: Is there any downside to using AI?

MS. MAXWELL: Yeah. I think we have to be careful that we interpret the information correctly. There is a rise on hallucinations and deep fakes. Satellite data is one of the things that I really wanted to talk about because, you know, satellite data is helping us take that snapshot of the planet. We’re really entering into a global golden age of satellite data that’s now enabling us to observe a finer resolution at 30 centimeters, which is incredible. And this is helping us stop deforestation with early warning alerts. It’s helping us monitor species, and the huge images there are really being able to help us. You know, AI is like the superhero. It goes through all those images like a QR code and finds the objects of interest so you can actually detect greenhouse gas emissions or ships fishing illegally in different areas or really kind of look at the health of the planet and get those vital signs.

But, you know, in the future, we have to be careful that that is valid by humans, that there are no fake kind of imagery or validations coming through as we start to pin kind of carbon credit schemes on these technologies and different finance mechanisms on these technologies. So, you know, at the moment, AI is really that labor-saving technology within conservation, and I think going forward, we need to use it for that purpose.

MS. EILPERIN: Now, you started your career working on technology for companies such as Nike and Virgin. What are some of the lessons that you learned early on that you’re now applying to your conservation efforts?

MS. MAXWELL: Yes. So I’m not the typical conservationist for sure. I came from the digital transformation background in the corporate sector, and that corporate-to-conservation move was really challenging. I had to prove my value within the conservation science space, but now I think diversity of experience and skills is really celebrated, where it wasn’t back then, eight years ago. And now we need a mixture of skills from social workers, economists, everybody to solve these problems.

But some of the methods I brought in the time were not popular. You know, coming from an innovation background, I brought in the delivery methods of experiment, move fast, fail fast, and that was difficult because conservation doesn’t have the budget for repeat iterations. And so it took time for people to understand it, but when they saw the benefits, we had some great outcomes. And I think when I was at ZSL eight years ago and we moved through that experimentation, we actually were able to do some of the first computer vision AI, which looked at identifying species in camera traps, and that’s then gone on to be developed by Microsoft as their own solution for MegaDetector, and that’s been standardized within conservation research.

So I think be patient. New ways of working will come, and the benefits and opportunities will open up.

MS. EILPERIN: What do you wish that people knew more about when it comes to technology and the conservation space in terms of challenges? What are the biggest ones that you think we face right now?

MS. MAXWELL: Yeah. I think, you know, I talked about uplifting the next level of protected areas, and that is going to need funding. So that’s never–philanthropy is never going to do it all. We hope that carbon credits can come through and be empowered by technology to actually provide some of that mix.

So I think big funding bodies like the EU but like the GEF, or Global Environmental Facility, are seeing that digital infrastructure is really important as a springboard to create these sustainable nature-based economies and empower these areas. And I think the challenge is going to be going forward, you know, as more vendors come on the market, more connectivity, more services is for the average protected area manager. You know, they have to deal with all this complexity.

And so IT for conservation is really important. We are seeing the need for an on-site person who can keep the lights on, who can keep everything working, who can keep the data backed up, and that needs training, skills. And so we really not only have to get the donations of the technologies but help these conservation managers navigate the space to be able to get the solutions that are clearly having this fantastic impact.

MS. EILPERIN: And we’re almost out of time, but I’m curious of in terms of blue sky, future of conservation technology. Is there–when you look at what you think, hopefully, we’ll see five years from now, ten years from now, is there something you’d identify as one of the most prominent, promising innovations that we’ll have at our disposal?

MS. MAXWELL: Yeah. I think AI and satellite imagery has got huge potential, the more we have to monitor the Earth, but I think we like to dream big. What we do have are the tools in place. We’re running out of time. We need to deploy the tools that we have in our toolbox, and we really see a connected network of protected areas that are well equipped with tools, that are well resourced, and I think ensuring that happens will bring those species back from the brink and stop us losing that one million of species over the next decade.

So it’s about empowering those local people, and sometimes it’s a high-tech solution, but sometimes it’s also a low-tech solution. And so helping them get the right tools for their challenge is the important thing right now.

MS. EILPERIN: Well, this has been a fascinating conversation. Unfortunately, that’s all the time we have. Sophie Maxwell, thank you so much for joining us here on Washington Post Live.

MS. MAXWELL: Oh, it’s been a pleasure to be here. So thank you so much, Juliet.

MS. EILPERIN: Of course.

And thanks to all of you for joining us. To check out what interviews we have coming up, please head to WashingtonPostLive.com to register and find more information about all our upcoming programs.

I’m Juliet Eilperin. Thanks again for joining us.

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