Natural Capital
Nature
Nature Recovery
Technology
5 minutes
01/01/1
Advancing Biodiversity Monitoring with Technology
Kicking off our Tech for Nature series, we showcase a collaboration with Mozaic Earth and rePLANET, deploying an innovative scalable biodiversity monitoring system for one of our Foresight Natural Capital afforestation assets.
In this series we explore how AI, digital tools and cross-sector collaboration are changing how we track ecosystem health and enhance biodiversity.
Our commitment to nature recovery drives us to explore innovative solutions that improve biodiversity, whilst creating scalable systems for sustainable land management. This case study highlights how new technology, including smartphone-based monitoring and expert analysis, enables high-quality data collection while empowering local teams and reducing costs.
Advancing Biodiversity Monitoring with Technology
In collaboration with Mozaic Earth and rePLANET, Foresight Natural Capital (FNC) deployed an innovative biodiversity monitoring system to establish a biodiversity baseline for a 2,500-hectare estate in the Scottish Highlands.
This partnership not only supports the development of a robust biodiversity baseline for carbon and biodiversity credit markets but enhances nature-related reporting and the overall value of the land we manage for investors.
Mozaic Earth connects carbon buyers with high-quality, nature-based projects, ensuring measurable and verifiable outcomes that support biodiversity and community resilience. Similarly, rePLANET champions global sustainability through solutions such as renewable energy, reforestation, and ecological restoration. Together, these organisations help tackle the climate crisis through impactful approaches.
Foresight Natural Capital's collaboration with Mozaic Earth integrates smartphone-based monitoring, AI, and remote ecologists to significantly reduce the cost and complexity of habitat and vegetation monitoring. Field employees, even without prior ecological training, use a gamified mobile app to capture geolocated images of afforestation sites. These images are analysed remotely by expert ecologists, decentralising data collection and enabling faster, scalable surveys while improving AI training.
The system also incorporates additional data sources, including habitat assessments, plant diversity surveys, bioacoustic monitoring, and invertebrate surveys. These inputs, automatically or locally collected, create a resilient, audit-grade biodiversity baseline. This comprehensive approach ensures effective biodiversity monitoring and management across our projects, reinforcing our commitment to sustainable land stewardship.
Foresight’s Helge Hansen recently joined a Nature Tech Collective webinar sharing further insights on the project. Watch to find out more.
Key Findings: Efficiency and Impact
This technology-driven approach yielded impressive results:
· Cost Reduction: By using Mozaic Earth’s platform, we have reduced the cost of biodiversity monitoring by around 50% compared to traditional methods.
· Accurate and Auditable Data: The platform allows us to collect high-quality, auditable data on habitat and biodiversity, enhancing the value of our land assets.
· Improved Reporting: The system improves the quality of our nature-related reporting, helping us meet our environmental goals and align with global sustainability standards.
· Community Engagement: Early feedback from field staff and ecologists has been overwhelmingly positive, creating opportunities for further community engagement and future projects.
Looking Ahead
Through this partnership, we’ve learned that in the natural capital market, it’s important to strive for “good” over “perfect”. Balancing scientific rigor with scalability is essential for directing more funding into nature recovery. The project also highlights the power of cross-disciplinary partnerships, which bring together expertise from Foresight, Mozaic, rePLANET, and other biodiversity experts to deliver effective results.
Another aspect of this initiative is the decentralisation of data collection. Allowing field employees to collect data and having it remotely analysed by ecologists has dramatically increased the speed and scalability of our biodiversity surveys, leading to a more efficient and effective monitoring process.
The success of our initial projects in 2024 will serve as a stepping stone for further expansion. We plan to extend this innovative monitoring system across additional sites, reinforcing Foresight Natural Capital's journey towards supporting sustainable land management and biodiversity enhancement.
Nature as a Strategic Asset
Nature plays a critical role in mitigating climate change. Healthy natural assets, such as forests, oceans, peatlands and soils, are vital for carbon sequestration and ecosystem regulation. Our strategy leverages nature-based solutions, which are recognised as essential for achieving global emission reduction targets and securing supplies of sustainably-produced goods. By investing in natural capital, we contribute to the global effort to address climate change and biodiversity loss and a sustainable supply of food.
Read 'The Carbon Credit Price and National Tree Planting Impact of Woodland Carbon Code Admittance to the UK-ETS' written in collaboration with King's College London and Imperial College Business School.
