WWF, Huawei launches project to safeguard Biodiversity in Italian agriecosystems

 The project conduct bioacoustic surveys that will allow WWF to compare the biodiversity of the agricultural areas managed with organic methods within WWF Oases.

WWF Italy, Rainforest Connection, and Huawei Italy recently renewed collaboration on the Nature Guardian series of area-based conservation projects. The second phase aims to study agriculture’s impact on biodiversity in Italy using innovative audio-monitoring technologies.

Twenty-four offline RFCx AudioMoth edge devices have been deployed to record the sounds of different animal species over 12 months in eight agroecosystems: Valle dello Sporeggio, Bosco di Vanzago, Ghirardi, Ripabianca di Jesi, Calanchi di Atri, Lake Penne, Monte Sant’Elia, and Lake Preola/Gorghi Tondi.

The collected data is sent to a Huawei cloud platform for analysis by the Rainforest Connection Arbimon tool, with the analytics function trained to recognize the calls of target species. The resulting data insights, which would be impossible to acquire through conventional manual methods, will be used to study the characteristics and trends of biodiversity in agroecosystems, including the relationship between different farming practices and nature conservation.

“Thanks to the renewed collaboration with Huawei and Rainforest Connection, we will conduct bioacoustic surveys that will allow us to compare the biodiversity of the agricultural areas managed with organic methods within WWF Oases with those of other neighboring agricultural areas managed using conventional methods,” said Benedetta Flammini, Marketing & Communication Director of WWF Italy.

Aligned with WWF’s Food4Future, Huawei’s TECH4ALL program, and EC policy, the project’s data-driven insights are intended to help guide future best practices for sustainable agriculture, including balancing the needs of nature and people and promoting a food supply system that is resilient, inclusive, sustainable, and healthier.

“At Huawei, we embrace the objectives of the European Green Deal and the ‘farm to fork’ strategy,” said Wilson Wang, CEO of Huawei Italy. “By placing our technology at the service of these objectives, we want to contribute to the creation of a more sustainable food system, preserving the richness and variety that Italy can boast in terms of wildlife and habitats in agricultural environments.”

 The project conduct bioacoustic surveys that will