NATURE FIRST: THE PROJECT IS BORN, AN INTERVIEW WITH SONJA VAN MEERBEEK
Nature FIRST is a data-driven programme that seeks to predict and prevent biodiversity decline in Europe and beyond. It is a Horizon Europe project focusing on human-wildlife conflicts and making tools to protect the environment.
But how was this project born? How did it become a Horizon Europe project? What are its goals beyond the current scope? And how can people get involved? Join us for a chat with Sonja van Meerbeek, Managing Director of the Sustainable Scale-Up Foundation and Nature FIRST Executive Board Member, as she answers all of these questions.
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In 2021, the freshly established broker Sustainable Scale-Up Foundation seized the opportunity to apply for a Horizon Europe grant. Horizon Europe is the EU’s key funding programme for research and innovation: it aims at tackling climate change, helping to achieve the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals and boosting the EU’s competitiveness and growth.
Back then, the Sustainable Scale-Up Foundation was working on Ideas from Europe and the Wildlife Forensic Fund (with various consortium partners, including DOTspace, the Wildlife Forensic Academy and Sensing Clues). While Ideas from Europe and DOTspace were working on space data for smart cities; the Wildlife Forensic Fund was working on forensic intelligence to fight wildlife crime; and Sensing Clues was setting in motion revolutionary biodiversity measuring and monitoring methods. Then, as told by Executive Board Member Sonja van Meerbeek, DOTspace Board Member and European grant expert Linda van Duivenbode advised them to apply for the Horizon Europe grant, as it perfectly fit the current partners’ variety of expertise. “Linda was the one that triggered us. So we knew these partners and we were already working with them, but together it was like this call was written for us,” says Sonja.
And so the idea of Nature FIRST came about, with Europe as the main focus. This is because, as mentioned by Sonja, biodiversity in Europe is plummeting despite world-leading nature laws; and human-wildlife conflicts continue to threaten both natural habitats and people’s safety.
With this in mind, the four consortium partners (Sustainable Scale-Up Foundation, Wildlife Forensic Academy, Sensing Clues and DOTspace) started looking for more European partners to consolidate the project. “This is how our current network was formed”, says Sonja. The network of partners includes 3EDATA, the Semantic Web Company, Sensing Clues, DOTspace and the Wageningen University on the data side; the Staffordshire University and the Wildlife Forensic Academy on the forensic knowledge side; and the World Wildlife Fund, the Danube Delta National Institute and the Bulgarian Academy of Science on the research and nature conservation side. In addition, the Sustainable Scale-Up Foundation comes in for communication and dissemination purposes. “We wrote the whole proposal together, with all the partners, and so Nature FIRST was born.” highlights Sonja.
Nature FIRST was then awarded the Horizon Europe grant, and so it became a European initiative funded by the European Commission.
Importantly, some of the above-mentioned consortium partners are also related to the project field sites, (which encompass the Ancares - Courel reserve in Galicia, Spain; the Carpathian Mountains in Central and Eastern Europe; the Danube Delta river, which lies in Romania and a small part of Ukraine; and the Stara Planina mountains in the Balkan Peninsula). “We had this clear vision to monitor biodiversity and also make use of forensic knowledge,” explains Sonja. “But it is one thing to develop tools and methods in a way that is supply driven, and another thing is to be demand driven. Especially in the geo field, the end users are vital players. And since we wanted to promote biodiversity, the end users were the field sites. So then we started to work reiteratively” she went on. This means that the tools created by Nature FIRST are tested by the field sites, who then provide feedback, and in turn, the tools are adapted and further created according to their demands.
In order for all of this to work, the project’s data driven strategy is vital. “With real-time data, you can see what happens, and you can start to explain things. This is very important and valuable, because as you see something happening, you can tackle it right away. But then you can also use the data to do some modelling, which leads to predictive data. The predictive data is what we really want, as it allows us to predict if something is going to happen and prevent it,” says Sonja. At the moment, Nature FIRST is focusing on human-wildlife conflicts, which refer to encounters between humans and wildlife that lead to negative results and biodiversity decline. Nature FIRST’s goal is to use collected data to predict when and where conflicts may occur and tackle them in time. This can be specifically (and importantly) applied to wildlife crime.
“So we start with the field sites and ask them: ‘what is your biggest problem at the moment?’. For instance, in the Danube region there is a real problem with sturgeons,” points out Sonja. According to the World Wildlife Fund, giant, 7-metre long Beluga sturgeons used to migrate up the Danube as far as Germany, but this is no longer the case, and five sturgeon species are critically endangered today. “So we focus on the sturgeons and see what is happening,” she adds. “Are they poached? Are they dying? What’s happening with the sturgeons? And we start small.”
Wildlife forensics (which entails the application of science to legal cases involving wildlife) is also a crucial part of this process. It’s a relatively new science, as forensics has been historically used on humans, but only recently has it started being used on wildlife. “It is a very important element of the Nature FIRST project,” mentions Sonja. “We also train the rangers to collect evidence, which is then handed over to the police. There’s also data, and if we mix the evidence and the data, there’s many lessons to be learned. It can become predictive. It’s a very new element and it makes the project unique,” she added.
Sonja also notes that although Nature FIRST currently focuses on human-wildlife conflicts such as wildlife crime, the intention is to broaden the scope in the future. Eventually, Nature FIRST hopes to also focus on issues within nature itself: as an example, digital twins could be used to predict how the wind is blowing, which can be useful for wildfire prevention.
This is also why the field sites are the key stakeholders in this project. “They are the ones who see and should understand what’s happening in their sites. They are also in contact with law enforcement if something happens, and they are in contact with the people who live there. The people are a very important target group, as we do not only use data from our satellites and sensors, but also from people that live there and take pictures on a daily basis,” explains Sonja. “Together with the field sites, we make sure that other stakeholders are also reached. This is also helpful for policy making, because we will probably also learn lessons and be able to say, ‘this works, while this doesn’t’”, she adds. In this way, Nature FIRST seeks to align technology, organisations and policies to reach results.
In this day and age, with biodiversity and wildlife in fast decline, it is highly important that we understand what is happening. Because of this, Nature FIRST envisions a world in which as many people as possible use the tools we are creating. “When we have the tools ready, and the methods, the best thing people can do is to test and use the tools, and spread the word. I think that would be the most precious outcome of this project: to have the tool used by as many people as possible,” said Sonja. She also added: “We see the field sites as our customers, and we hope to have satisfied customers. We seek to make tools that are actually used, and not only that, we also want the tools to actually be predictive, so law enforcement policies can also be predictive.”
In the future, Nature FIRST also hopes to expand beyond Europe. “At the moment we have four field sites, but it would be so great if we could have hundreds of them,” says Sonja. “We are starting with Europe, but we have similar problems all over the world, so our intention is to expand, expand, expand.”
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