On March 3rd is World Wildlife Day. This morning Zhou Jinfeng, Secretary General of CBCGDF, met with the delegation of Mr. Dennis Nagel, the representative of Cecil Alliance.
The meeting stems from the fact that they found out online that CBCGDF has been protecting wildlife (the pangolin, the leopard seal, etc)and sparing no efforts to fight against illegal wildlife trade, which has sparked their interest so that they came to China to seek cooperation. During the meeting, the two sides discussed current problems in global wildlife conservation and how to use technology to provide solutions.
Zhou gave details of the recent poaching of 100 spotted seal pups in Dalian, 39 of which have been dead so far. Why were these spotted seals (class ii protected animals) stolen during childbirth? That’s in order to meet the demands of the aquarium exhibition. What do a hundred cubs refer to? Experts estimate that 100 pups are more than half the annual production of the entire Liaodong bay spotted seal population. Poaching is a significant cause of the rapid loss of biodiversity. With more than half of all births stolen, how will the species survive in the future?
Yet meanwhile, the number of Marine Parks is increasing sharply. One big problem so far is the whitewashing of the farming industry - as one journalist put: there are big problems with the current license system. Without genetic identification or new techniques for individual identification, it is technically difficult to define whether a live leopard seal in an aquarium is bred in captivity or in the wild, which amounts to a "domestic breeding license" that can conceal and trade something terrifying. Hence, we're putting forward creating DNA Tags or creating ID Cards for those animals to stop the illegal wildlife trade at its source.
Dennis Nagel introduced the Cecil Alliance, whose vision is to create a world where animal data can be used effectively to improve animals' welfare and to promote species conservation. It is promoting to set up a global standard of collecting, tracking and processing animal data, bringing transparency, data accessibility, traceability and verifiability for the animal-based industry, improving animal welfare and enhancing species protection to the end.
According to Dennis Nagel, modern technologies (like It-blockchain), can maximize the impact on biodiversity and conservation worldwide. Blockchain has multiple possibilities for connecting and makes these processes transparent, traceable, controllable and more attractive. China's green development is of particular significance to the whole world. He has seen previous cases involving the alleged falsification of official seals and agreements and believes that such incidents can be avoided essentially through modern technology, thus promoting the efficiency and credibility of China's wildlife protection system.
Guests explained in detail how secure digital physical products against tamper-proof through digital tags make tags inseparable from the animal itself as well as register a tag ID on the blockchain so that let it impossible to counterfeit, and so on.
Zhou Jinfeng agreed totally. After a lot of discussions on technical details, he suggested that we should also refer to some practices of charitable fund-raising in China. For example, some fundraising platforms allow people to obtain an "e-certificate" through donation and establish a feedback mechanism. Similarly, IoT-blockchain technology can use this mechanism to have the public actively participate and interact.
As to promoting nature conservation by technology and big data, Zhou introduced that CBCGDF FDY also has special software, such as FDY " River Eye" APP. CBCGDF FDY Fish Protection Center has tens of thousands of volunteers, who have made positive contributions to China's fish conservation. This year, we launched this APP on World Wetlands Day. It is free for the public to download and use, who can collect the events of illegal fishing, illegal sand mining, sewage discharge and so on. One press to inform can lock illegal facts accurately. It reserved quick linkage interface for law enforcement as well. In addition, it can collect information about aquatic animals’ protection distribution, with (fish recognition) AI fish intelligence identification system, recording personal fishing spot, interest spot, and patron records, as well as work out big data analysis and display. Now many law enforcement departments of local governments are also using this APP, which provides large convenience for combating illegal fishing and law enforcement of fishery administration. Zhou noted in particular that " These should be incorporated into the blockchain system ultimately for all is part of big data and nature conservation. Big data, blockchain and artificial intelligence must be the future of nature conservation.
For pangolin’s protection, we have been calling for building pangolin big data platform to protect pangolin. Every five minutes, a pangolin is killed in the world by poaching and illegal trade. The development of science and technology has brought hope to protect endangered species. Zhou lays stress on inadequate data and information on the protection ;it’s not because there's no underlying data but those who are not willing to share information with each other, thus, just like an isolated island of information, the data cannot be communicated or integrated and it is difficult to use information for better decision-making. It has been also a serious and long-standing problem in biodiversity conservation over the past decades. Using big data to support innovation can help us better protect and sustainably use our biodiversity and share its benefits. So we are looking forward to the great potential of science and technology to help protect endangered species such as pangolins as we move towards the post-2020 decade of biodiversity.
The two sides signed A Memorandum of Understanding on the spot.
(Photo credit: CBCGDF)
Original Chinese article:
http://www.cbcgdf.org/NewsShow/4937/7807.html
By / Crystal