Drones for the care and conservation of the environment: open knowledge at the service of the community

In Mexico, 50% of the mangroves exist on the coastlines, serving a fundamental ecological role both in the preservation of their biological diversity and as the contention of meteorological phenomena such as hurricanes and serving as cities’ green spaces. 

The loss of these spaces due to human activity is accelerating, and the repercussions of this fact are severe. According to the Mexican Government, deforestation, or loss, implies a yearly 10% increase in global carbon emissions. 

Diverse groups of land and territory defenders are organizing in different parts of Mexico to stop the severity of the situation. Technology plays a very valuable partnering role in citizen organization, for example, in terms of communication, organization, and systematization of environmental advocacy. Las Guardianas del Conchalito is an environmentalist collective of 12 brave women who commit to the protection and restoration of diverse mangroves located in La Paz, the capital of the Mexican state, Baja California Sur. 

Another useful feature regarding environmental preservation is the use of aerial images. A joint team from the Universidad Nacional Autónoma de México, the Comisión Nacional para el Conocimiento y Uso de la Biodiversidad (Conabio), and the company Google were able, with satellite data, to size this serious situation: Mexico lost 1, 817 hectares of mangroves from 2015 to 2020. 

Unfortunately, the data involved in these investigations was generated with expensive technology, and equipped with proprietary and inaccessible software to a civil association organized to protect the land and territory with their own resources, threatened by the intervention of de facto powers that see their interests threatened by not being able to continue their predatory actions. 

As Wikimedia México, we support a project generated by the Humanitarian Open Street Map Team (HotSOM) and financed by the Wikimedia Foundation, which targets the use of open and free technology for environmental preservation and care. With over a decade of experience in mapping technologies and aerial satellite images within humanitarian causes, HotSOM has land and territorial care as one of its aims. To this effect, we attended a series of workshops and activities in order to convey and share this knowledge with the organized community of La Paz. 

HotSOM has a coordination platform called Drone Tasking Manager (Drone TM), where it is possible to generate and use images produced by low-cost drones in order to promote the independency of company’s and government’s satellite data that usually is not free of charge, or is received with intermittency. The use of relative low-cost drones can help create accurate maps with accessible technology. 

The Guardianas del Conchalito, on their behalf, have created partnerships with local collectives that support their efforts and have helped them reduce the tech gap. That’s the case of BCSicletos and Mangles del Manglito, who have adopted diverse tech projects for environmental protection. The HotSOM project linked, the use of drones for mangrove monitoring and protection through aerial images, the experience of generating reliable data with an open spirit and self-supporting tools. 

HotSOM organized a series of activities in La Paz that included Wikipedia, Wikimedia Commons, Drone TM, and Open Aerial Map workshops. Previously, a workshop with curricular value took place, taught by the professional drone pilot Dante Loeza Amaro from the MX Topography company, and with the attendance of Ivan Gayton and Stephen Mather, the Drone TM and Open Aerial Map developers who traveled, particularly to this event, from the United States and Canada. 

Drone TM is an intuitive tool that can be used by anyone to create flight plans for low-cost drones. In this case, the DJI Mini 4 Pro (with an approximate 800 USD value) generates photographs with geolocalized data with a calculated overlap at the height of the footage.  This way, orthophotos are generated, these are specific land area photographs with high visual quality and cartographic validity that can be created with Drone TM, which processes orthorectification photographs and produces the most accurate possible land data. 

For the Guardianas del Conchalito, this represents a very valuable tool because through this technique it will be possible for them to make regularly scheduled flights in order to surveil the mangrove they’re in charge of with high precision and less physical stress. Furthermore, it eases visualizing non-accessible angles. The first of this orthophotograph documentation is available on Wikimedia Commons. Soon, a guide to replicate this method will be available on Meta. 

Along with the drone activity, Wikimedia México conducted workshops on Wikimedia projects that produced the update of diverse articles related to mangrove protection. The outcome of this session will be available on the corresponding dashboard and Wikimedia Commons category. 

The onboarding of the community to collaborative projects such as Wikipedia and OpenStreetMap not only strengthens open knowledge, it also makes them key tools for social advocacy and informed decision-making. These initiatives allow the documentation and visibility of local struggles with accessible and verifiable data, promoting citizen participation in crucial information build-up for their territories. 

In this context, the collaboration with HotSOM opens new opportunities. Amongst projects generated with Drone TM development is the creation of a volunteer drone-user network: dron-owners, who can generate high-quality aerial images that support humanitarian action. This network would work as a quick response system during emergencies, allowing essential and immediate post-disaster snapshots for key actors in crisis management.  

Thus, we invite the drone-experienced community to join this initiative that links open knowledge with humanitarian action. Their knowledge and equipment can make a difference regarding open data generation and mapping to save lives.

This collaboration continues to articulate an ecosystem of open knowledge, solidarity, and humanitarian action that transforms the way we face emergencies and build resiliency, hoping that each drawn map and each captured image serve to protect lives and strengthen communities.