IBM and WWF-Germany to Develop AI Visual Inspection Technology to Monitor Key Species

IBM and the World Wide Fund For Nature – Germany (WWF) announced they will collaborate to develop a new solution to support the monitoring of keystone species, starting with the endangered African forest elephant.

Combining IBM’s expertise in sustainability and technology with WWF’s extensive experience in conservation, the new solution will be designed to use AI-assisted visual inspection to enhance elephant tracking, supporting the accurate identification of individual elephants from camera trap images. The aim of the solution is to support key conservation efforts for African forest elephants, which have been shown to increase carbon storage in their forest habitats.

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As part of this collaboration, IBM Consulting worked with WWF to explore innovation opportunities by aligning WWF’s conservation initiatives with IBM’s expertise in sustainability and technology. The collaboration will leverage IBM’s proprietary software, IBM Maximo Visual Inspection (MVI). Using MVI’s AI-assisted visual inspection and modeling capabilities, the solution aims to analyze camera trap images and videos to identify individual African forest elephants with greater accuracy.

In addition, both organizations plan to use IBM Environmental Intelligence to detect aboveground biomass and vegetation levels in specific areas where elephants occur, which will enable more accurate predictions of future elephant locations to better quantify the NCP services they provide.

Oday Abbosh, Global Sustainability Services Leader, IBM Consulting

At IBM, we strive to make a lasting, positive impact on the world through business, our environment, and the communities where we work and live. Our partnership with WWF marks a significant step forward in this effort. By combining our expertise in technology and sustainability with WWF’s environmental expertise, we aim to harness the power of technology to create a more sustainable future.

Thomas Breuer, WWF Germany – African Forest Elephant Coordinator

Counting African forest elephants is difficult and expensive. Logistics are complicated, and population numbers are not precise. The ability to identify individual elephants from camera trap images using AI has the potential to be a game-changer. AI will allow us to monitor individual animals across space and time, providing more robust and detailed population estimates and enabling performance-based conservation payments such as wildlife credits. Spatial data will also show us where these elephants are choosing to move—enabling us to protect these wildlife corridors.

Kendra Dekeyrel, Vice President, ESG and Asset Management, IBM

Our technology will play a key role in streamlining the process of identifying and accounting for individual elephants. This is an exciting new application of IBM software that, when combined with our consulting services and WWF’s deep knowledge of the natural world, can help create new ways to accelerate the organisation’s sustainability efforts.