CIRAD Campus Lavalette – Amphi Jacques Alliot – Bâtiment 4
Machine Learning in Montpellier, Theory & Practice – Étienne Laliberté (Université de Montréal)
Tropical forests hold the majority of terrestrial plant carbon and biodiversity, but they are being altered with climate change. However, we do not know how the vast majority of tropical tree species are responding to climate change and other stressors because traditional field-based approaches cannot collect sufficiently large sample sizes for most species. As part of the winning team of the XPRIZE Rainforest competition, we have developed an AI solution using drone imagery that can greatly accelerate the mapping of tropical trees. The drone hardware needed is affordable and readily accessible to researchers and conservation agencies. In this talk, I will present this technology, which I will argue has the potential to revolutionize tropical forest science, conservation, and restoration. I will talk about the opportunities, as well as some challenges that need to be addressed to unlock the potential of this technology for tropical canopy studies.