Bosque La Tigra built a biological station in the reserve that serves as a rainforest school, a place for learning and discovering the forest. Students, tourists families, and visitors can have a first-hand experience at Bosque La Tigra and enjoy the outdoor activities in the reserve.

Families can visit Bosque La Tigra and enjoy a unique experience embedded in the tropical forest. Bosque La Tigra is also a welcoming space for schools and high schools of La Tigra and surroundings, where students can learn about the tropical rainforest, its dynamics, and local biodiversity. The biological station of Bosque La Tigra has classrooms to give lessons for the local communities that are undergoing training in tourist guidance, entrepreneurship, among other topics.

Bosque La Tigra has focused on creating alliances with universities, schools, and learning institutes to cooperate and implement environmental education programs and other training at the biological station. The Project also offers overnight accommodation for students groups to develop outdoor courses and training.

Bosque La Tigra owns 46 hectares of primary and secondary forests, as well as regeneration areas, as relicts of what used to be passion fruit plantations. Bosque La Tigra adjoins the Children Eternal Rainforest, Costa Rica’s biggest private reserve, with 23.000 hectares. For the Project, this location is a strategic element of the reserve work.

Bosque La Tigra has intended to foster the ecological connectivity of both reserves by conserving the forest and also, by actively restoring the regeneration areas of the reserve with native trees. For this purpose, the project designed a reforestation sequence for the regeneration areas. Eventually, the area will enter into an ecological succession process and foster ecological connectivity with the Children Eternal Rainforest.

At least 40 different species of native trees and bushes have been identified to plant in the regeneration areas. The Project has established a tree nursery that reproduces trees and seedlings from the same primary and secondary forests of the reserve and has a capacity for 700 seedlings and plants.

Between 2017 and 2020, a total of 4500 trees were planted. Every reforestation effort is supported by the voluntary work of students, companies’ employees, national and international tourists, and Bosque La Tigra staff.

Years of research and conservation practices have not only stressed the importance of biodiversity data but also revealed the flaws of current workflow, ranging from inefficient data management, lack of data integration, to limited public-accessible data applications. Moreover, such workflow is mainly man-powered and often involves a lot of repetitive work, taking up huge amount of conservationists’ time.

Following the rapid development of technology, we have gradually realized the potential of technology to bring solutions to our “pain points” for long. In order to utilize technology tools in places in most needs, a systematic review and analysis of the current workflow was conducted to identify bottlenecks with high priorities and the possible solutions. The contemplation began in May 2018 and was materialized starting from Jun 2019 after potential technical partners emerged. Based on the systematic workflow analysis and close partnership, we made a step-by-step plan, aiming at developing modules one by one, considering our limited resource and manpower (e.g., from community-based camera trap monitoring assistant app, to BiA tool, to citizen science data visualization platform, to camera trap data management system).    

During nature watch campaigns, citizen scientists are invited to observe and record wildlife timely, which not only strengthens the connection between citizens and nature but also serves as a promising species distribution data source. Species record data collected by citizen scientists via online questionnaire automatically flows into the visualization platform database (after data cleaning and manually periodically check) and turns into intuitive and attractive visualized charts and maps (two types: spatial, spatial and temporal) via Power BI. The platform, with both web and mobile version, provides real-time feedback to citizen scientists’ nature watch efforts, boosting their sense of accomplishment and motivating their future participation in nature watch activities. Moreover, since the platform integrates multiple nature watch campaigns with links to web articles about specific analysis of each campaign, it offers a broad range of biodiversity knowledge and enables “virtual nature watch” for citizens to get to know wildlife in other regions.

A brief timeline of the platform:

• Jan-Feb 2021: form team, analyze analysis, make blueprint
• Mar-Jun 2021: develop database and platform
• Jul-Aug 2021: trial test
• Sept 2021: go live and promotion

To accelerate camera trap data workflows, an online data management system along with app-based tools and AI image recognition is being developed supported by technical partners, which consists of:

• Community-based camera trap monitoring assistant app: the app allows local monitors to automatically record the time and GPS location of camera trap setup/pickup, saving the cumbersome process of collecting data from local monitors and manual data entry. (blueprint: Jun 2019, development: Oct 2019-Feb 2020, trial and use: Mar-Oct 2020)
• AI image recognition models: AI models help detect animals and identify species in camera trap photos, which greatly reduce the number of photos that need human identification and enhance data processing efficiency.
  • A series of AI models has been trained and/or tested with technical partners, including PU & PKU ResNet18 model (2018), MegaDetector (test only, 2020), MindSpore YOLOv3 model (2021).
• Online data management platform: camera trap information collected via the app along with photos are upload to a structured cloud database. The data management platform not only supports species identification via AI and human, but also enables global data search and statistics reports. (blueprint: Apr-Aug 2021, development: Sept 2021-Jun 2022, trial and use: Jul 2022)

Program personnel visited villages in areas considered at-risk for Ebola virus outbreaks. This engagement helped to identify community interest in contributing to animal mortality reporting and assess the potential role of hunters in the network. While researchers and ecoguards initially provided some reports of carcasses, the majority of reports were ultimately received from hunters, allowing for more focused engagement of this demographic group. In addition to reporting, outreach was conducted to reach hunters and communities in several ways to support awareness of risk reduction strategies. For example, in the Étoumbi region, the Field Veterinary Program provided outreach education on Ebola and livestock husbandry to the Étoumbi Hunters’ Association, as well as hunters and other villagers of Mbomo and Kellé. Communities around national parks (Nouabalé-Ndoki and Odzala-Kokoua) were engaged, and visual posters and books were also provided to a village nurse for further dissemination.

Components of the system involved mortality reporting by hunters and community members, investigation of reports by veterinarians trained on specimen collection and handling protocols, specimen transport to national laboratories, and laboratory screening for disease diagnostics. Each of these involved specialized inputs, but the coordination between entities created the system. Information management and communication were conducted throughout the process. A Carcass Data Collection and Reporting Protocol was integral to the process, ensuring consistent reporting.

Training of staff is important to ensure the effective implementation and long-term success of the solution. Prioritise training during the designing and deployment phase, as well as after the deployment to ensure continued use of the solution.

ArcGIS Online provides a secure and flexible framework for both deploying useful applications and integrating other conservation technology to holistically support workflows related to each initiative that is being implemented by a protected area. The foundation of all workflows includes tools for data collection such as mobile survey forms (Survey123), data visualisation (dashboards or web applications), analyses, and reporting. Additionally, the ArcGIS Living Atlas of the World gives you access to the foremost collection of geographic information from around the world to support your workflows, this includes the latest satellite imagery and products such as forest loss.

There are several pre-configured workflows for initiatives that can be unpacked and implemented immediately. These initiatives include:

• Track Illegal Activity.
• Monitor Wildlife.
• Mitigate Wildlife Conflict.
• Maintain Park Infrastructure.

The workflows are configurable and allows users to customise them based on their needs. Alternatively, organisations have access to all the necessary building blocks to develop entirely new workflows for their own initiatives e.g., a community outreach or public participation initiatives.