The 2024 XPRIZE Rainforest finals will be held in the Brazilian Amazon rainforest, in the state of Amazonas, in mid-2024. The prize is aimed at developing new technologies for mapping the biodiversity of the world’s tropical forests. Source: Timberbiz
XPRIZE Rainforest is a global 5-year, US$10 million competition to enhance our understanding of tropical rainforest ecosystems around the world. Incentivizing teams to innovate rapid and autonomous technology to expedite the monitoring of biodiversity and data collection, this prize aims to allow researchers to gain near real-time insights about the health and well-being of rainforests that can more immediately inform conservation action and policy, support sustainable bioeconomies, and empower Indigenous Peoples and local communities around the world.
In a first technology test held in the Singapore rainforest this past June, six teams were selected.
The XPRIZE Rainforest has entered its final stretch after four years of work involving 300 teams from 70 countries. With technologies that include the sequencing of environmental genetic material, drones with bioacoustic sensors, the use of terrestrial robotics, artificial intelligence, and citizen science, the teams selected for the final showed, in practice, the effective use of their innovations.
In the second half of 2024, finalists should be able to survey 100 hectares of Amazon rainforest in 24 hours and report the most important discoveries made in real time, within 48 hours. The objective will be to demonstrate scalability and maximize performance both in the survey of biodiversity and in the production of solutions compatible with the challenges of a humid and dense tropical forest.
To date, researchers from around the world have identified around 1.5 million species present in tropical forests, but some studies estimate that we live with around nine million types of fauna and flora that we still do not know. At the same time, mapping allows effective monitoring of the fight against biodiversity loss, one of the central threats to life on Earth, according to the UN.
The ownership and use of the data collected during the competition is one of the points of attention for the XPRIZE Rainforest.
The teams:
- Brazilian Team, Piracicaba (SP) – drones, arrays of sensors, terrestrial robotics and drones with pruners designed to collect samples of environmental DNA (eDNA) for evaluation.
- ETH BiodivX, Switzerland – Patented and modified drones used to collect digital and physical samples that can be analyzed using “backpack lab” technology combining innovative AI, citizen science and field eDNA for cost-effective remote analysis.
- Map of Life, USA – Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) equipped with high-resolution image capture and acoustic sensors that transmit data to a cloud-based dashboard.
- Providence Plus, Spain – Large drone-deployed sensors designed to produce rich data at multiple levels of coverage that would otherwise be difficult to access.
- Team Waponi!, USA – new insect traps and innovative bioacoustic sensors to be deployed and retrieved via drone.
- Welcome to the Jungle, USA – Drones with bioacoustic and imaging sensors customized to leave behind only native organic material from the forest after recovery.
