ATBC 2024 participation

As part of their work on the One Forest Vision initiative (OFVi) at the Museum National d'Histoire Naturelle (MNHN), doctoral student Claire Auger and MNHN-OFVi research engineer Hugo Magaldi took part in the annual ATBC conference. The conference, which brought together 400 people of 52 nationalities from 14 to 18 July 2024, was an opportunity to represent OFVi and to present two of its projects from Pilar 1 to the scientific community. It was a unique opportunity to forge new collaborative links with conservation and research players in the Congo Basin.

Hugo Magaldi presented the automatic taxon classifier for images and videos from camera traps that he has been developing over recent months using deep learning algorithms, and invited participants to share data if they wished. Interested teams subsequently made contact and have already shared images.

Claire Auger presented the work of her first-year thesis on biodiversity inventories based on 85,000 video camera-traps and direct bird inventories at the forest/cropland interface in Uganda. The aim of this project is to test the feasibility and usefulness of developing ‘wildlife friendly’ labels for sustainable tea production, based on endangered and umbrella species (elephant/chimp), by determining reliable and simple biodiversity indicators for producers and consumers.