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Cambridge EcoHack focuses on protected areas

A global relay of EcoHacks took place the weekend of 15-16 November in six cities across the world. UNEP-WCMC hosted the leg which took place in Cambridge, UK, where 20 people from software development, design, and science backgrounds came together to work on three hacks.

Organized by a collaboration between World Resources Institute, CartoDB, and Vizzuality, this global EcoHack was launched in Sydney, Australia at the Protected Planet Pavilion at the World Parks Congress. EcoHacks also took place in Madrid, New York, Washington DC and San Francisco. The projects developed by the EcoHack participants at each of the hacks has the potential to make important contributions to tackling new and emerging problems for protecting our environment.

At the Cambridge leg, Jonathan Smith, Jamie Gibson and Frits Timmermans each proposed an idea that the Cambridge ecohackers chose to work on over the weekend – That’s my farm; Protected Areas from the Air; and Ecomotions.

Ecohackers at work on laptops

Cambrige EcoHackers creating new tools that have potential to protect our environment

‘That’s my Farm’ is a web app that allows a user to mark a boundary of their land, using the GPS signal from their smartphone as they walk around the boundary. There is great potential for this to be used by governments in countries where ownership records may have been destroyed or are incomplete, helping to resolve potential conflicts where there are competing claims.

Protected Areas from the Air is a prototype website that brings together drone enthusiasts looking for interesting projects and protected area managers. Drones are increasingly being used to provide more accurate monitoring of the state of our environment and protected area managers can use pictures recorded by drones to observe changes in the land under their management. Tapping into this source of visual information could contribute to our understanding of protected areas.

The third hack, Ecomotions aimed to investigate how far social media information, such as tweets, can be turned into actionable information for protected area decision-makers. A proof-of-concept map for Stonehenge was created, and could be used to gain a snapshot of what is going on in protected areas.

At the other EcoHacks projects included: the visualization of satellite data tracking the journeys of marine species such as seals, porpoises, turtles and dolphins; an app that alerts you when you enter a protected area anywhere on Earth; and a web add-on that allows anyone to annotate any piece of information on the internet with an objective of allowing scientists to annotate and evaluate the scientific accuracy of articles about climate change.

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