Strengthening biodiversity with AI

We want economic actors and citizens to be more involved in the protection of biodiversity. To facilitate this, we are working on the development of an AI-supported monitoring tool. This will simplify and improve the assessment of biodiversity and the certification of areas for biodiversity conservation.

Until now, experts have been assessing and evaluating the state of biodiversity on agricultural land. In our project “AI and Citizen Science-Based Monitoring of Certified Biodiversity Projects” – KICS-Zert for short – we are working with the Leibniz Centre for Agricultural Landscape Research (ZALF) on a new tool that improves or replaces biodiversity monitoring using AI through citizens (Citizen Science). It evaluates smartphone photos and videos to determine how diverse nature is in a location (e.g. orchards, hedges and flowering areas) and how heavily the agricultural areas are used there.

The GNF is responsible for ensuring that the needs of companies are taken into account during the development of the project. This includes an analysis of current reporting and management standards as well as relevant food certifications. In this way, we support companies with the new tool in meeting their sustainability and certification requirements. The AI is fed with data from nature observation apps used by citizens throughout Germany.