Smart Forests Radio

Pujita Guha for the Forest Curriculum: Building Knowledges Beyond Data

In this episode, we speak to Pujita Guha for the Forest Curriculum, a "collectively run itinerant anarchist platform for artistic, curatorial and political research and organisation." Pujita talks about the collaborative process of building a platform for conversations about forests, the nonhuman, and Indigenous knowledges in South and Southeast Asia. Other topics include the risks of digital technologies and data in contexts of state surveillance, and how artistic practices can expand sensory experiences of forest spaces beyond digital calculability.
Interviewers: Kate Lewis Hood and Jennifer Gabrys
Producer: Harry Murdoch
For more on the Forest Curriculum, head to the Smart Forests Atlas.
Image: The Forest Curriculum, https://www.facebook.com/forestcurriculum/

Patrick Ribeiro: Digital Tools for Transparency in Forest Restoration

In this radio episode, we speak to Patrick Ribeiro, founder of OpenForests, a technology company that develops digital tools such as the explorer.land platform for forest restoration initiatives. Patrick discusses how digital technologies – from drones to satellites to interactive maps – can facilitate data-led storytelling that builds transparency between on-the-ground restoration projects, stakeholders and investors, and why it is important to take a multidimensional approach to forests' value.
Interviewers: Max Ritts and Trishant Simlai
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Image source: explorer.land, https://explorer.land/x/projects

Brian House: Sensing Climate Change through Infrasound

In this episode, we speak to Brian House, a sound artist and Assistant Professor of Art at Amherst College. Brian discusses Macrophones, an ongoing project that records and processes atmospheric infrasound (sound with a frequency below the range of human hearing) to make it audible for listeners. The conversation touches on the role of art and technology in generating new environmental sensitivities, and how to make the materialities of data infrastructures visible.
Interviewers: Max Ritts and Michelle Westerlaken
Producer: Harry Murdoch
For more on Macrophones, check out the Smart Forests Atlas.
Image: Brian House, Macrophones, https://brianhouse.net/works/macrophones/

Joycelyn Longdon: Forest Sound, Machine Learning, and Data Justice in Ghana

In this episode, we speak to Joycelyn Longdon, a PhD researcher on the AI for the study of Environmental Risk programme at the University of Cambridge, and founder of Climate in Colour, an educational platform focused on climate science and social justice.
Joycelyn discusses her interdisciplinary work creating machine learning algorithms and data visualisations of forest sound with a community living by the Bosomtwe Range Forest Reserve in Ghana. She reflects on the importance – and the complexities – of participatory, justice-oriented research to co-create technologies that facilitate community agency and data sovereignty in knowing and managing forests.
This episode also includes audio recordings from the acoustic sensors Joycelyn and the community have installed in the forest. Listen out!
Interviewers: Kate Lewis Hood and Michelle Westerlaken
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Image: Teye, a hunter from the community Joycelyn is working with, installs an acoustic sensor in the forest. Image source: Joycelyn Longdon. Reproduced with permission.

Border Agency: Fire Forests and Artistic Research in Chile

How do fire, forests, and landscape politics intersect? In this Smart Forests Radio episode, we speak with Border Agency, a research and art collective, about their latest exhibition at the Museo de La Solidaridad Salvador Allende in Santiago, Chile. 
We discuss the role of eucalyptus plantations in reshaping the Chilean landscape, and consider the power dynamics involved in cultivating forests. We also explore the opaque borders between monocultural and wild landscapes, and look at how collaboration can open up different ways of inhabiting and caring for landscapes.
Founded and directed by Sebastián Melo, Rosario Montero and Paula Salas, Border Agency works internationally with bases in Santiago de Chile and London, UK. 
Interviewer: Jennifer Gabrys
Producer: Harry Murdoch. 
Visit the Smart Forests Atlas to learn more about our research project.
Image source: Bosques de Fuego (Fire Forest), Border Agency. 

Paul Roe: Continuous Acoustic Monitoring in Australia

In this episode, we speak to Paul Roe, Professor of Computer Science at Queensland University of Technology. Along with academics from a range of Australian universities, Paul leads the Australian Acoustic Observatory (A2O), a network and infrastructure of acoustic sensors that continuously monitor different ecosystems across the continent. In this conversation, Paul discusses the Observatory's open access data-driven approach, how these data can be used by different stakeholders, for example monitoring particular bird species or studying the effects of bushfires on ecosystems, and the relationship between digital data analysis and immersive ecological observation.
Interviewer: Max Ritts
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Head to the Smart Forests Atlas to find out more about the Australian Acoustic Observatory.
Image source: Australian Acoustic Observatory, https://acousticobservatory.org/blog-2/

Hana Raza: Camera Traps and Persian Leopards in Iraqi Kurdistan

In this radio episode, we speak to Hana Raza, a wildlife conservationist from Iraqi Kurdistan and founder of the newly-formed NGO Leopards Beyond Borders. While working with Nature Iraq, Raza and her team found evidence of the Persian leopard, which was presumed locally extinct in Iraqi Kurdistan. Leopards Beyond Borders aims to protect this important species and, more widely, to establish protected areas for wildlife in Iraqi Kurdistan. In this conversation, Hana discusses the importance of camera trap images for influencing policymakers and international conservation communities, and the risks of doing wildlife conservation work in places where war and border conflicts have long-term and ongoing impacts.
Interviewers: Michelle Westerlaken and Trishant Simlai
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Visit the Smart Forests Atlas for more discussion around the Persian leopard and Hana's work.
Image source: Nature Iraq, https://osme.org/2016/01/funding-conservation-projects-a-voice-for-biodiversity-in-iraq/

Mitch Aide: Acoustic Monitoring and Remote Sensing in Tropical Ecology

In this radio episode, we speak to T. Mitchell Aide, a tropical ecologist and former Professor of Biology at University of Puerto Rico-Río Piedras. In this conversation, Mitch discusses the development of ARBIMON (Automated Remote Biodiversity Monitoring Network), an important early platform for storing and analysing eco-acoustic data, the different challenges of remote sensing and acoustics for studying tropical forests, and whether there should be a shift in focus from collecting increasing amounts of data.
Interviewer: Max Ritts
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Head to the Smart Forests Atlas for more perspectives on ARBIMON.
Image source: ARBIMON / RCFx, https://arbimon.rfcx.org/project/rfcx-temb-brazil-project/visualizer/rec/28434613

ARISE Project: Digital Biodiversity Infrastructure in the Netherlands

In this episode, we speak to five people who have contributed to the ARISE project, a digital infrastructure that aims to identify and monitor all species in the Netherlands. These conversations took place at the ARISE day held at the Naturalis Biodiversity Center in March 2022. We hear from:
Elaine van Ommen Kloeke, ARISE's programme manager
Jacob Kamminga, a computer science researcher specialising in sensor networks and machine learning
Chantal Huijbers, senior project manager developing the underlying infrastructure of ARISE
Rosalie Kross, an interaction designer whose graduate project involved shaping the ARISE platform
Stephan Peterse, owner of Faunabit, a company that builds the DIOPSIS insect camera traps used by ARISE.
These discussions touch on the challenges of bringing multiple different kinds of data together in an ambitious long-term project, the hardware needed for taking pictures of insects, and the development of algorithms for automated species identification.
Interviewer: Michelle Westerlaken
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Visit the Smart Forests Atlas for more perspectives on ARISE.
Image: DIOPSIS insect camera used in the ARISE project. Image source: Michelle Westerlaken.

Pratyush Mallick: DIY Devices for Forest Monitoring in India

In this episode, we speak to Pratyush Mallick, developer of Forest Guardian, a DIY, open source device used to detect illegal logging in forest spaces. Pratyush discusses the potential of the DIY/hacking community for building technologies to address environmental change, and the politics of implementing these technologies on the ground in Indian forests.
Interviewers: Michelle Westerlaken and Trishant Simlai
Producer: Harry Murdoch
Find out more about Pratyush's work and the Forest Guardian device on the Smart Forests Atlas.
Image source: https://www.hackster.io/phatta/forest-guardian-267cb7