Wilder Insights Lab is a startup formed through the merger of two complementary ventures: Wilder Land, a company that transforms native plants and weeds into soft drinks, and Luistervink, a company that make the processes occurring in nature visible. As co-founder Matthijs Westerwoudt explains, Wilder Insights Lab’s mission “is to transform biodiversity into concrete, actionable information for farmers”.
The problem the company is seeking to solve is a practical one: anyone wishing to carry out a rigorous assessment of biodiversity on a plot of land must spend hours in the field with species lists, repeat surveys over several years and compare the results with those from similar areas to obtain scientifically valid data. This process is out of reach for most farmers, businesses and public authorities that invest in nature restoration schemes and would like to know whether they are actually working.
The solution is an acoustic sensor called Luistervink, installed in fields to continuously record ambient sounds. An artificial intelligence system analyses the recordings, identifies the species present and returns real-time data via a dashboard. Ecologists and volunteers verify a portion of the automatic identifications, and each verification feeds into the model, progressively improving its accuracy. “Artificial intelligence is like an ecologist, but much cheaper,” summarises Westerwoudt: before AI, an ecological assessment was costly and, at best, produced a few seasonal snapshots of the terrain; now the data are available 24 hours a day.
The system compares the species detected with those expected for that type of habitat, flags up any missing species and suggests specific actions that could help them return.
The ambition, in the co-founder’s words, is to build “the Strava of biodiversity”: a platform where farmers can monitor their progress over time, use the data to improve their practices and share the results with their stakeholders, such as customers, banks and institutions. As the company’s philosophy goes, what is known is seen, what is seen is valued, and what is valued is protected.
Name:
Wilder Insights Lab
Website:
Sector:
Biodiversity
Plus:
Making the biodiversity of farmland and natural areas measurable and shareable
Features:
Acoustic sensors that identify animal species in real time and compare them with those expected in each habitat
Cover: image by Envato
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