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EUROPEAN PROBLEM STATEMENT N°1
Organization: IUCN NL
Title of Problem Statement:
Illegal Wildlife Trade in Australian Monitor Lizards
The Problem:
Unsustainable human activity is driving a sixth mass extinction1, an ever-widening biodiversity crisis driven by habitat loss, pollution, invasive organisms, climate change and wildlife trade2. Although awareness of the scale of biodiversity loss is growing, assessments of the (illegal) wildlife trade remain incomplete. Nevertheless there are many publications pointing in the direction that wildlife trade and trafficking is the second most damaging human activity to global biodiversity3.
The illegal Wildlife Trade is one of the largest transnational criminal activities, threatening species and presenting risks of spreading zoonotic diseases to
humans. The European Union (EU) is considered one of the largest markets for wildlife in the world, playing an important role in international legal and illegal wildlife trade. Wildlife traders are increasingly moving online to reach a vast, global marketplace. Any wildlife species, even the most threatened and therefore most protected ones can be found for sale online.
CITES regulates the international trade in flora and fauna. Some species are banned from commercial international trade while many other species are only permitted for international trade with an accompanying CITES permit. However, it is well documented that CITES regulated specimens are readily available on various e-commerce platforms, without showing any proof of legality.
Under Australian law, commercial trade in any of the Australian monitor lizards (generic name: Varanus) is prohibited since [1976]. The Australian monitor lizards knows 32 subspecies, commercial trade (national and international) in any of these (sub)species is since prohibited. Trade is only permitted for specific non-commercial reasons and with accompanying CITES permits. Nevertheless, more and more (sub)species of the Australian monitor lizard are emerging on the European market that have not been seen in the commercial trade before. The assumption is that a significant number of these specimens have been imported illegally from Australia. However, due to the fact that commercial trade was allowed prior to [year] it may be that some of them are captive bred and offspring of the originally legally imported specimens. To efficiently investigate the European trade in Australian monitor lizards and to understand the scale of this trade, constant monitoring is required. Due to size of the online trade, hands-on policing of the internet is sheer impossible.
Some e-commerce platforms have initiated efforts to recognize offers being made on their platforms that entail regulated wildlife products in certain animal species, such as ivory and rhino horn. These recognitions are largely based on search queries. Yet, to date, there is no algorithm capable of recognizing offers for the multitude of CITES-listed reptile species, such as the Australian monitor lizards.
The Challenge:
The challenge is to develop algorithms that are capable to automatize the search for CITES listed Australian monitor lizard specimens on European e-commerce platforms. The challenge would be to develop a species search based on names in descriptions. Species search by their names in product descriptions, or titles is a straightforward task, since e-commerce platforms are designed for it. The scientific names (and English names) of all CITES-listed species are available in html format and database format. Besides a search by names the search would need to include whether the traded species are captive bred and/or that parent animals are mentioned in the online add. This would enable law enforcement to narrow their intelligence work to only investigate species that are not captive bred and that do not contain any mentioning of parent animals.
Hence, the successful tool matching this challenge will need to make the link between CITES listed Australian monitor lizard (sub)species with e-commerce platforms, and in addition thereto identify the origin of the traded animals, wild caught or captive bred.
Results should be presented in tabular form by scientific name and setting whether or not it is captive and/ or mentioning of parent animals. Ideally, the tool would be able to run autonomously for constant monitoring.
Criteria:
- Ability to link the two databases for an efficient search algorithm: 1) Database containing CITES-listed Australian monitor lizard species and an e-commerce platform to monitor offer for products that are advertised using any of the retrieved names including whether or not the species are captive bred and/ or mentioning parent animals.
- Clear and straightforward presentation of results, e.g. in tabular form (csv or similar). - Use of non-specialist or freeware IT technology.
- Easy and semi-autonomous implementation that can be repeatedly or continuously used by non-specialist staff.
Data Sets and Other Resources:
Information on the Australian monitor lizards:
- CITES appendices and annotation for each species in html
- https://www.cites.org/eng/disc/species.php
- https://www.speciesplus.net/#/
Online platforms
- https://www.marktplaats.nl/ - https://www.terraristik.com/ - https://www.enimalia.com/
- https://www.hobbyreptiles.com/ - https://reptilienserver.de/ - https://reptimania.com
EUROPEAN PROBLEM STATEMENT N°2
Organization: IUCN NL
Title of Problem Statement: Europe an IWT hub, predicting the demand for illegal wildlife.
PROBLEM OVERVIEW:
Europe plays an important role globally on trade in wild animals and plants as a final destination or a transit haven, sometimes called transport hub. Early this year a #WildEye report revealed that Europe is a major market, transit hub and source region for illegal wildlife products. But 79% of the seizures were made by just five countries in Western Europe — France, Germany, the United Kingdom, Spain and the Netherlands. While France had the largest number of seizures, with 1,256, countries in Eastern Europe made hardly any. Slovenia reported nine and Slovakia eight. Bulgaria reported five, and Romania just two.
This is probably only because Eastern Europe’s role in global illegal wildlife trade has received little attention. Programs like Reducing Opportunities for Unlawful Transport of Endangered Species (ROUTES) Partnership are trying to disrupt wildlife trafficking activities. These partnerships report a total of 50+ SEIZURES A DAY 20,000 SEIZURES A YEAR worldwide.
At the same time the number of protected animals and their products available for sale over the internet is enormous. Meanwhile, there are an increasing number of online marketplaces which facilitate a range of trade, including that in endangered wildlife. Having a good insight on the characteristics of the demand side can help to predict the routes and species that will be targeted by traffickers.
CHALLENGE:
Based on analysis of online discussions/forum/sites comments, help us build an algorithm that associates words to specific patterns a probability of being linked with an illegal demand for wildlife trafficking. This model needs to be a multi-language words pattern detection, with a natural language processing and fraud anomaly detection. By adding the demand side, i.e. consumer countries and desired animal species, you can predict sourcing and demand.
Also based on the demand from destinations (predicted above and by other available data per countries/regions on numbers on frequency of trafficking), propose a model that estimates and predicts high risks routes linking species, regulations, flights and demand. This tool will identify high risk routes and potentially other transportation to help customs to act more effectively. By putting CITES data and seizures data side by side you can recognize patterns and modi operandi.
CRITERIA:
- Select most relevant data sources to build fraud leads and explain why you have chosen those
- Propose an ontology for patterns detection (at least a piece of it)
- Link words patterns detection to volume of frauds per region (extrapolation) - Share firsts results on both modelling works
- Present results on model 2 (transports) on at least one destination/language
RESOURCES:
https://www.wildlifetradeportal.org/ :
Connexion ID: muriel.guyader@freespiritfoundation.fr; PW: FreeSpirit2020
CITES appendices and annotation for each species in html
• https://www.cites.org/eng/disc/species.php
• https://www.speciesplus.net/#/
Seizures and offences reported by all 27 EU Member States and the UK. https://www.wildlifetradeportal.org/#/login
LEMIS database seizure data of US (open access). Please note that there is substantial illegal trade between EU and US.
https://springernature.figshare.com/articles/Metadata_record_for_United_States_wildlife_and_w ildlife_product_imports_from_2000-2014/11439471
Possible routes
• http://www.routesdashboard.org/
Online trade
• https://www.marktplaats.nl/
• https://www.leboncoin.fr/
• https://www.ebay.com/
• https://www.enimalia.com/
• https://www.toutypasse.com/
2
EUROPEAN PROBLEM STATEMENT N°3
Organization: Free Spirit Foundation
Title of Problem Statement: Software application development to detect and track the species.
The Problem:
The Earth has lost 68% of wildlife populations including populations of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles and fish within the last 40 years, according to WWF Living Planet Report 2020. This dramatic decline of species populations is mainly caused by habitat loss and degradation including deforestation, driven by human activities.
Although biodiversity is fundamental to human life on Earth, the evidence is unequivocal – it is being destroyed at a rate unprecedented in history. Since the industrial revolution, human activities have increasingly destroyed and degraded forests, grasslands, wetlands and other important ecosystems, threatening human well-being. 75% of the Earth’s ice-free land
surface has already been significantly altered, most of the oceans are polluted, and more than 85% of the area of wetlands has been lost.
Species population trends are important because they are a measure of overall ecosystem health. Measuring biodiversity, the variety of all living things, is complex, and there is no single measure that can capture all the changes in this web of life.
Nevertheless, most indicators show net declines over recent decades.
Emblematic species such as lions, tigers, pandas, polar bears, rhinos, giraffes, elephants, gorillas (etc), but also marine mammals and fishes are well-known species threatened by decline. But there are also millions of other smaller yet essential species that are also under threat, some of them living in our soils, in plants or in rivers.
All of these provide fundamental support for life on Earth and are showing signs of stress.
But not only do human global activities and industries impact wildlife. There are many publications pointing in the direction that wildlife trade and trafficking is the second most damaging human activity to global biodiversity.
Indeed, consumer demand for animal products on the black market has pushed many species toward extinction.
Some of these products are particularly researched in illegal wildlife trade for traditional medicines, ornamental status symbols, or trophies: rhinos’ horns, big cats’ teeth and skin, elephants’ tusks, giraffes’ tails are part of this illegal trade.
Some of these species are captured to be used for scientific research, sold to zoos or to serve as pets in many countries.
Indeed, several significant threats endanger wildlife biodiversity, including habitat destruction, encroachment, poaching, disease, and natural disasters.
To help scientists, animal experts and non profit organizations, it has become critical to be able to identify the number of individuals for each threatened species remaining in their natural environment.
The Challenge:
The challenge is to conceive and develop a software application whose objective would be to detect and track endangered species:
- Either with a generic platform, that would allow centralizing information on various threatened species and help track them. Obtaining sufficient data as well as their good representativeness (in terms of geographic areas in particular, etc.) is critical.
- Either a more thorough application on specific species for specialized scientists (at the choice of the candidates). This qualitative approach would make it possible to find / cross and constitute data on species.
- In both scenarios above, propose a methodology of extrapolation of numbers based on detection and tracking allowed by the solution.
- Based on harvested numbers, build a forecast model that considers last available estimations (machine-learning)
- Bonus : propose analysis of correlations between different species numbers (for instance in regards to the food chain in a specific locality)
Criteria:
- Ability to distribute globally the information regarding threatened species, focusing on illegal wildlife traffic and poaching.
- Provide at least one forecast model to predict numbers focusing on specific threatened species.
- Provide methodology to share information about the representativeness of the harvested data ~relevance (in terms of geographical areas, for instance).
- Engaging and easy user experience to make sure that the solution can be used by scientists and animal experts around the globe.
Data & Resources:
Living Planet Report 2020 : https://livingplanet.panda.org/en-us/
https://data.oecd.org/biodiver/threatened-species.htm
Lion :
National Geographic :
https://blog.nationalgeographic.org/2009/10/13/lions-are-urgent-focus-for-nat-geos-big-cats initiative/
https://www.hsi.org/wp-content/uploads/assets/pdfs/report_trophy_hunting_by_the.pdf https://www.secretsdumondesauvage.fr/lions-voie-disparition/
Biodiversity and Conservation : https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007%2Fs10531-012- 0381-4
Elephant :
https://www.wwf.fr/especes-prioritaires/elephants
State of the World's Forests 2007 - De Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations :
https://books.google.com/books?id=QwmnBWBZOeQC&pg=PA97&lpg=PA97&dq=elephant+ 10+000+000+in+1900&
Wildlife Conservation Society: 96 elephants killed each day / 35 000 per year 65% of elephants killed: Authors of landmark 2013 study, coordinated by WCS
Gorilla :
https://www.iucn.org/news/species/201609/four-out-six-great-apes-one-step-away-extinction- %E2%80%93-iucn-red-list
Giraffe :
Study Julian Fennessy :
https://books.google.fr/books?id=7Qd
AgAAQBAJ&pg=PA186&lpg=PA186&dq=julian+fennessy+giraffe+140+000&
68 293 in 2006 according to IUCN.
40% less in 30 ans : IUCN https://www.iucn.org/news/secretariat/201612/new-bird-species and-giraffe-under-threat-–-iucn-red-list
Tiger :
WWF Nepal : http://www.wwfnepal.org/what_we_do/wildlife/tiger/
95% of their habitat is lost : WWF https://www.worldwildlife.org/species/tiger 110 tigers killed per year since 2000 : https://www.worldwildlife.org/projects/shutting-down tiger-farms
Whale :
https://www.wwf.fr/vous-informer/effet-panda/baleines-sous-haute-surveillance
Orca :
https://www.nationalgeographic.fr/environnement/la-moitie-de-la-population-mondiale dorques-pourrait-disparaitre-dici-30-ans
Wolf :
https://www.wwf.fr/especes-prioritaires/loup
https://www.lepoint.fr/societe/le-loup-reste-une-espece-menacee-en-france-uicn-12-06-2019- 2318585_23.php
https://www.wwf.fr/projets/pastoraloup-apaiser-les-conflits-homme-loup Eurasian Lynx:
https://uicn.fr/wp-content/uploads/2017/11/liste-rouge-mammiferes-de-france metropolitaine.pdf
https://www.wwf.fr/especes-prioritaires/lynx-boreal
Rhino :
https://www.iucnredlist.org/species/19495/8925965
https://www.savetherhino.org/rhino-info/population-figures/
EUROPEAN PROBLEM STATEMENT N°4
Organization: Free Spirit Foundation
Title of Problem Statement: Interactive development for children
The Problem:
Now more than ever, it is essential to teach kids about the importance of wildlife conservation. Unfortunately, today kids are constantly engaged in gaming or television and have a minimal connection to nature. Consequently, they often might situate animals as a distraction, for instance in zoos and aquariums. In those attractions, they don’t realise the animal has been captured and/or taken off from its real life. They can quickly have the relationship between human and animals skewed, as humans make business with wildlife exhibitions. They lose notions of their real habitat, needs or behaviour.
Why should we teach wildlife conservation to youth?
That’s a question which we must ponder over. For a start, young minds are highly receptive to learning and accommodating new information, and this includes facts and figures. Children should be aware about wildlife animals' situation, which include the main dangers they are suffering from, what brings about their extinction or leads them to be classified as vulnerable or endangered and what are the ways through which we can contribute towards their preservation.
It means changing behaviors through education and awareness.
But how to teach them wildlife the right way ? How to be sure they will be receptive?
There are many ways to teach wildlife conservation to children, through plays, dramas and skits, or any other attractive ways. As effective as these methods are, nothing can replace the effectiveness of interactive applications. Putting young minds as actors of wildlife preservation clearly has a lasting impression on them, and can bring good habits and perspectives early in their life.
Doing so will develop an awareness in them, along with sufficient introspection about the dangers facing our wildlife today.
How to use IT, new technologies and more precisely videos being sure that it wouldn’t damage children mental equilibrium?
Indeed, the impact of IT and new technologies on children’s behavior and their mental equilibrium is a burning issue. Videos, video games or any other virtual passive entertainments might bring children into a withdrawn behavior and can spoil their relation with our real world.
But, interactive and active digital media might be a good alternative as they are engaging children in the experience.
Interaction is the key as it guides children to look at relevant information on the screen. Creating impacting video content can connect what children see on the screen to their experience in the world.
The Challenge:
The goal is to create an interactive game for children aged from 6 to 12 years old to raise awareness about wildlife, living place, food, needs and make sure young minds understand how to consider animals and act with respect. The solution should bring a wide range of wild animals and put at disposal valuable animations for each targeted age.
The idea here is to develop an interactive game that presents its gameplay in a cinematic, scripted manner, often through the use of full-motion video of either animated or live-action footage. This game has to place the child actors of wildlife conservation and protection, and make sure he/she understands poaching and illegal trafficking.
The challenges of this problem statement are:
• To bring valuable and updated data constantly,
• To have an interactive programming, which means keep writing parts of the program while it is already active,
• To make the game interesting with interaction and bring animations that keep child focus and entertained,
• To deliver relevant content for educating the youth,
• To not consider the animal as their own property but as a free living creature. The most used programming languages for games are C++ / Java / HTML5 / CSS3 / JavaScript / SQL. But it is not mandatory to follow that path.
The Criteria:
We will take the best interactive program that can educate children on one hand but raise wildlife care also. It is important to measure the impact of such interactive games to make sure it will be empathic. We expect an educational game with punchy visuals in order to raise sensitivity for animal welfare. We will look at your process to reach youth minds, keep them interested and to collect relevant content.
Data sets and other ressources :
Importance and pertinence of children education:
https://www.ranthamborenationalpark.com/blog/wildlife-conservation-education-school books/
http://blacksnakeproductions.com.au/why-teaching-kids-about-wildlife-conservation-is important/
https://cursus.edu/articles/42897/ce-logiciel-qui-cree-des-histoires-interactives https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Interactive_programming
Impact / role of interactive videos on children education:
https://www.thetechedvocate.org/the-impact-of-youtube-videos-on-student-learning/ https://observatory.tec.mx/edu-news/the-impact-of-video-on-education
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5132380/
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/05/180522082143.htm
https://www.gamedesigning.org/career/programming-languages/
EUROPEAN PROBLEM STATEMENT N°5
Organization: Free Spirit Foundation
Title: Software application development for cities to raise public awareness about wildlife trafficking and everyone’s impact on it.
The Problem:
Wildlife trafficking is one of the largest forms of transnational organized crime. It threatens national security, economic prosperity, and the rule of law; pushes species to the brink of extinction, and spreads diseases. Public awareness needs to be raised about these topics so that everyone understands why wildlife conservation is such an important and imperative issue. In addition, wildlife trafficking is a supply to a demand, understanding where this demand comes from may offer the possibility to anyone to be part of the solution.
A turnkey solution for cities
The city is the socio-political unit that is the closest to the citizens. It has direct access to them, people can easily identify to their city because of the proximity and a sense of community. The idea here is to provide a turnkey solution to cities so that they can commit to such a global issue even if they have neither the means nor the knowledge to do it. This way, cities can actively take sides against wildlife trafficking and offer their people access to valuable information and practical solutions that can be implemented.
Targeting cities enables also to reach city dwellers who may have lost connection to nature and all the more to wildlife. They may feel they are not directly concerned by this issue even though they can actively play a role in fighting wildlife trafficking.
Using relevant and impactful communication means...
There are several ways to occupy the public space. The software application can take the form of a website, an app, but also live content for billboards, for displays in public transports or even any other creative and relevant form. The advantage of conceiving a turnkey solution for cities is that they have direct access to their inhabitants in many ways. The whole public space can become the playground. Combining this wide audience with innovative means such as the use of AI and image recognition will give the solution the greatest reach and impact.
...to raise awareness
On one hand, awareness must be raised through scientific information such as figures for instance giving people a comprehensive overview of wildlife trafficking. On the other hand, the idea is to involve people showing them how they can be part of a solution. City dwellers may already have a vague idea of what the issue of wildlife trafficking covers but very few are aware that they can have a positive impact and take part in fighting wildlife trafficking. Reducing the demand for wildlife will mechanically reduce trafficking and everyone can play its role. It can be by being a savvy tourist, questioning experiences with animals, by saying no to endangered and exotic animal products or by carefully choosing one’s pet.
The Challenge:
The idea is to be able to provide cities with a turnkey solution to raise awareness about wildlife trafficking and how we can sometimes contribute to it despite ourselves.
This solution could take the form of a website, an application but also live content for billboards, displays in public transports, or any other creative and relevant form. The objective is to enable cities to inform the population by providing key information and figures from existing official sources (such as IFAW, IUCN, etc.), but also to create awareness campaigns with a real impact.
Don't hesitate to let your imagination run free and to propose any innovative idea (AI, hologram, image recognition....).
The challenges of this problem statement are:
- To bring relevant and updated data,
- To have an innovative turnkey solution that can be used by cities and adapted to their communication media in public spaces.
- To make the software application user friendly and easy to use
- To make this software application a gateway to enable cities to raise awareness among the population
The most used programming languages for software applications are C++ / Java / Python/ HTML5 / CSS3 / JavaScript / SQL. But it is not mandatory to follow that path.
The Criteria:
We expect an innovative easy-to-use, ergonomic and user-friendly software application to facilitate the adoption by the end-users.
Let's not forget that the main point is that it needs to be a real awareness media used for providing people with realistic ways to take part in fighting wildlife trafficking.
Thus, it will be important that the content can be adapted for use on different communication media.
Data sets and other resources:
https://www.zsl.org/blogs/conservation/7-things-you-can-do-to-help-prevent-the-illegal wildlife-trade
https://wwf.panda.org/our_work/our_focus/wildlife_practice/wildlife_trade/ https://www.doi.gov/blog/10-things-poachers-dont-want-you-know-about-wildlife-trafficking https://www.nrdc.org/stories/wildlife-trade-101
https://oxpeckers.org/wildeyemap/
https://wwfeu.awsassets.panda.org/downloads/how_technology_can_help___final__1_.pdf https://earthjournalism.net/stories/investigation-reveals-illegal-wildlife-trade-is-rife-in-eastern europe
https://ec.europa.eu/environment/cites/trafficking_en.htm
GLOBAL PROBLEM STATEMENT N°1
Title of Problem Statement: Profiling and Combating Zoonotic Disease Risk from Wildlife Trafficking, Wildlife Markets, and Human Encroachment: A Decision-Making Tool.
Organization: The Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs (OES) at the U.S. Department of State and USAID Regional Development Mission for Asia.
Overview of the Problem:
A majority of emerging infectious diseases with pandemic potential originate from wildlife, such as coronaviruses, Influenza, Ebola, and HIV/AIDs. Amid the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, experts around the world have emphasized importance of characterizing spillover risk in different locales and in different species.
Wildlife trafficking, wildlife consumption for food and medicine, and encroachment into wildlife habitat are forms of contact that drive the emergence of zoonotic disease. High-risk wildlife wet markets, in which wildlife is slaughtered and sold alongside many different species, are hotbeds for wildlife trafficking and create key zoonotic disease risks. These markets keep many different species, which would never otherwise be found in nature, together in cramped conditions. Often these markets are not well-regulated or inspected for legality or public health and hygiene standards.
Destruction of protected wildlife habitat and encroachment into wildlife habitat areas also increase the risk of zoonotic disease. Poorly regulated forms of encroachment, such as from illegal mining and illegal logging operations into wildlife habitat puts humans closer to wildlife — which leads to greater transmission risk of pathogens into human communities. Encroachment also makes it easier for wildlife traffickers to poach protected species. Construction of illegal roads not only paves the way for illegal mining and logging, wildlife trafficking, and illicit drug production, but also increases zoonotic disease risk. Understanding risk of spillover from wildlife – through wildlife trafficking, consumption, high-risk markets, and encroachment- is fundamental to developing effective prevention and risk mitigation. A better understanding of risk can inform policy and regulations aimed at reducing emerging disease risk associated with wildlife trade. The assessment of specific markets as “high risk” or “low risk” with regard to spillover can also inform targeted interventions by public health or law enforcement professions, which is important in the face of scarce financial resources.
The Challenge: Identify, manage, and reduce the risk of zoonotic diseases, from wildlife trafficking and consumption, wildlife markets, or human encroachment into wildlife habitat. For example:
• The risk profiles of wildlife markets with regard to pathogen spillover vary among markets. Some markets will be “high risk” and others will be “low risk”. The challenge is to:
a) evaluate the most relevant criteria to be part of a risk profile (e.g. certain species or practices, such as slaughter on site), and evaluate a process for obtaining this information (preferably by “citizen scientists”), and propose a pipeline or platform for this data collection,
b) map networks of trade and other activities (e.g. patterns of consumption or encroachment) that contribute to spillover and amplification risk, and
c) to incorporate parts 1 and 2 into a decision-making tool for interventions in wildlife markets, based on the risk of zoonotic spillover and transmission in specific wildlife markets. The ranking guidelines and methodology should be validated in different countries with varying wildlife trade and marketing contexts.
Resources:
Woods, M., Crabbe, H., Close, R. et al. Decision support for risk prioritization of environmental health hazards in a UK city. Environ Health 15, S29 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12940-016- 0099-y
Huong NQ et al. Coronavirus testing indicates transmission risk increases along wildlife supply chains for human consumption in Viet Nam, 2013-2014. PLoS One.
2020. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0237129
UN Food and Agriculture Organization. Characterizing Livestock Markets for Real Time Decision Making: The Market Profiling Application. Sept
2019. http://www.fao.org/3/ca6132en/ca6132en.pdf
GLOBAL PROBLEM STATEMENT N°2
Organization: Vulcan Inc.
Problem Statement 2: Organizations trafficking wildlife products can be highly complex, involving many people and functional units. Disabling these organizations effectively is a challenging task, often tackled by identification of key individuals or relationships for intervention via known connections (following the money). Identifying these leverage points often involves synthesizing a huge amount of data, such as car registrations, gun registrations, financial transactions, informant information, known personal relationships, and when people are seen together. Graph representations are often helpful in making sense of it all, but collecting and processing all relevant data to generate these graphs can be hugely time-consuming. A tool to automate preprocessing, ingestion, and display of this data would save valuable investigator time.
Possible bonus features:
a. Low-impact way for informants to submit additional information
b. Graph Machine Learning to automatically classify individuals or connections of interest, or to hypothesize missing connections.
Semantica AI is a possible source of inspiration, though their pricing model is prohibitive for many organizations.
• Graph theory, conceptual overview: https://medium.com/basecs/a-gentle-introduction-to graph-theory-77969829ead8
• Survey on machine learning graph applications: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2005.03675.pdf
• Possible datasets: Synthesize similar to datasets at https://icon.colorado.edu/, and the output goal of the ingestion process should be data in forms similar to those there.
• Possible raw input files could include spreadsheets of vehicle identification numbers and license plates, separate spreadsheets of ownership information, lists of known associate groups, incident reports with names, dates, vehicles, and weapons, financial transactions between people or companies, and so on.
GLOBAL PROBLEM STATEMENT N°3
Organization: Vulcan Inc.
Problem & Challenge:
Many animal populations vulnerable to poaching are tracked to some degree with collared or tagged individuals. Identification of when and where these groups are threatened would enable better-targeted interventions on their behalf.
The ability to ingest and at a high level characterize the behavior of animal groups such as those available at movebank.org would support the protection of wide-ranging or remote animal populations. Create a herd/group behavior identifier algorithm that can ingest this track information along with a list of poaching incidents with a wide time and location window (self generated for testing, as this information is sensitive) and outputs an estimation of where in the track these incidents occurred.
• Behavior/anomaly detection primer: https://towardsdatascience.com/a-note-about finding-anomalies-f9cedee38f0b
• An example of track-based behavior detection:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/265964999_Automatic_detection_of_suspiciou s_behavior_of_pickpockets_with_track-based_features_in_a_shopping_mall
Possible datasets:
• Those available at movebank.org
• Relevant sets available at https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/ or data.gov, such as https://catalog.data.gov/dataset/sea-turtle-satellite-telemetry-data
GLOBAL PROBLEM STATEMENT N°4
Organization: TRAFFIC
Problem Statement POC: Giavanna Grein (Giavanna.grein@traffic.org), Senior Program Officer
Title of Problem Statement: Protecting Wildlife and People from the Risks of Online Trafficking in Wildlife
The Problem:
The current pandemic has revealed the fragile link between human health and wildlife exploitation, and how poorly regulated and illegal trade in wildlife can catalyze disease transmission and shatter global economies. The World Health Organization determined that COVID-19 is a zoonotic disease, meaning it originated from an animal. Other zoonotic diseases to date have included SARS, Ebola, Bird Flu, and MERS. COVID-19 is suspected to have originated in bats and may have jumped to humans via an intermediary wild species like the pangolin.
With physical wildlife markets under scrutiny or suspended and people under lockdown in many countries to stop the spread of COVID-19, sellers are turning to online marketplaces and social media platforms to offload stockpiles of live wildlife, wildlife products and meat originally destined for physical markets. The sale of these items online further increases the risk of disease transmission to human populations through the use of delivery and express courier services, or direct selling to interested buyers in person. Online marketplaces have been increasingly exploited by wildlife traffickers over the last decade, with social media platforms now serving as the main mechanism to connect buyers and sellers.
TRAFFIC and NGO partners WWF and IFAW convene the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online which unites the tech sector to reduce wildlife trafficking online. This Coalition, which is comprised of 36 member companies including Google, Facebook, eBay, Alibaba and Tencent, works to standardize prohibited wildlife policies, train company staff to better detect illicit wildlife
products such as elephant ivory and live tiger cubs, enhance automated detection filters, and educate and empower users to report suspicious listings. The Coalition has achieved great success to date, including over 3.3 million listings blocked or removed by company members in two years, though the widespread trade in live animals online is still a challenge that requires technology solutions.
The Challenge:
Convenors of the Coalition, as well as tech company enforcement teams, are limited in capacity for manually searching online platforms for prohibited live animals for sale. This process is very resource-intensive and inefficient when searching on a global scale. To reduce the trade in high risk live animals that may transmit zoonotic diseases to humans across global supply chains, the challenge is to develop a tool that will identify and alert these sales taking place on one social media platform in one language as a starting point, with the potential to scale to additional platforms and languages in future.
This will allow TRAFFIC, NGO partners and law enforcement agencies to flag new demand trends and emerging markets — and therefore target where action is needed to mitigate or eliminate risk.
Criteria:
• The tool developed should be able to scan one social media platform to identify high-risk live animals offered for sale. If feasible in the time provided, it would be great to capture information on where the seller is located, contact details, where they will ship the animal, any buyer information available, any reference to the health of the animal, the number of animals available, and which species are offered.
• The tool should be able to search in one language to start, with the ability to scale in future to include multiple languages. Zoohackathon participants may choose which language to include based on location. Sample languages include: Arabic, English, French, Portuguese and Vietnamese.
• The tool should include a warning system that will alert TRAFFIC of these risks to coordinate a response.
Things to consider that make online monitoring challenging:
o Sellers are able to create, delete and recreate accounts and profiles as needed to avoid detection.
o Not all sellers list an animal as for sale, or even include the name of the species. Some may simply use images of the animal as a means of advertising and let interested buyers comment on their posts. From there the conversations are taken into private communications like WhatsApp chats. Language in the comments will include things like ‘PM/DM’ for price and how much?
o Many of the listings for live animals are found in private groups which will require admission by a group administrator.
o It is important to note that the sale of endangered wildlife is an illegal activity and that many buyers and sellers involved are criminals. No member of your team should engage with these sellers directly, or like/comment any of their content. Nor should any member attempt to purchase any animals or products.
Data Sets and Other Resources:
• To learn more about illegal wildlife trade online visit the Coalition to End Wildlife Trafficking Online website.
• To review online monitoring reports from TRAFFIC visit the publication page. • To learn more about the link between COVID-19 and wildlife trade see TRAFFIC’s Wildlife trade, COVID-19 and zoonotic disease risks: shaping the response report.
GLOBAL PROBLEM STATEMENT N°5
Title: Create a method to monitor, record, and report logging activity.
Organization: U.S. Embassy Skopje
Overview:
Natural resources are crucial to our existence. While their sustainable harvest can support better quality of life for humans, their irrational exploitation might lead to irreparable damage to the entire ecosystem. It is hence often tried by various mechanism to regulate the careful use of these resources. However, forest management authorities and government officials have recognized the growth problem of illegal logging among both unorganized, small-scale groups and large, organized operations.
The Problem:
Reports suggest an increase in the demand for wood/timber and other forest-based products, mainly due to improving economic conditions, is leading to illegal exploitation for these products from nature. To meet this increased demand, illegal felling is being undertaken. These illegal operations contribute to corruption as they are often undertaken by organized and politically connected groups. Additionally, illegal logging contributes to local air pollution as the wood product is rarely processed according to government standards. The results are horrifying.
Many of the tropical countries feature prominently among the top nations which reported high net loss of annual forest area in the world for e.g. between 2010 and 2015 – i.e. Indonesia, which lost 684,000 hectares of forest area at a rate of 1% per annum, and Myanmar, which lost 546,000 hectares of forest area at a rate of 2% per annum (FAO, Global Forest Resources Assessment, 2015). Additionally, in 2014, few South-east Asian countries– i.e. Cambodia, Vietnam and Malaysia – clocked among the fastest rates of acceleration of tree cover loss in the world. (Global Forest Watch, 2015. http://www.wri.org/news/2015/09/releasenewglobal-data finds-tropical-forestsdeclining-overlooked-hotspots). The beautiful Amazon forests also face the threat of illegal felling mainly to meet unstainable demand of forest produce.
Currently, many countries lack the ability to systematically monitor, record, and report illegal logging activities due to a lack of expertise, funding, or both. Hence widespread utilization of specific technologies will significantly help those charged with curbing unwanted deforestation. It will also bring about transparency in the supply-chain of commodities where these products are
being used, leading to more sustainable forest and also better remuneration to those dealing with legal productions and supply.
The Challenge:
Creating a modern, technology-based solution to help enforcement agencies monitor, record, and report illegal logging activities in a potentially large geographical area. Solutions should include the ability to remotely identify illegal logging activity (such as via drone, satellite imagery, or audio detection).
Criteria:
Audience: Enforcement agencies such as Forest, Police, and Customs Authorities, national parks, NGOs, and legal logging companies.
Data Sets and Other Resources:
Similar projects have been developed around the world:
Using audio identification:
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/323281289_TreeSpirit_Illegal_logging_detection_and_ alerting_system_using_audio_identification_over_an_IoT_network
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S131915781831259X
Using Spotlight Imagery:
https://cbmjournal.biomedcentral.com/articles/10.1186/s13021-017-0078-9
Using Landsat Imagery:
https://globalforestatlas.yale.edu/conservation/forest-monitoring
Using Drones:
https://wwf.ru/en/resources/news/lesa/bespilotniki-pomogut-lesnomu-nadzoru-v-primore vyyavlyat-nelegalnye-rubki/