Sateliot is offering free connections to NGOs, including EWT, which is pioneering "The Eye in the Sky System," a state-of-the-art wildlife tracking technology poised to monitor and save highly endangered species across the vast African landscape.
San Diego, Barcelona, 7 of February.- Sateliot, the first company to operate a Low-Earth Orbit (LEO) 5G IoT satellite constellation, and EWT, the South African NGO marking its 50th year of operations have finalized an agreement. The collaboration aims to deploy 5G IoT sensors on vultures, a significant step toward safeguarding endangered species and combating poaching in Africa.
Sateliot's collaboration with NGOs extends 5G satellite coverage to the organizations. This extension is seamlessly facilitated through standard roaming with existing Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), eliminating the need for additional satellite user equipment. NGOs can now leverage the same terrestrial standard used by Mobile Operators to expand their operational reach.
Access to connectivity for IoT in remote areas has remained a big challenge, especially in the large expanses of water and land where most of the Earth's biodiversity is located. Numerous animals and plant species live here, some under significant pressure and endangerment.
With this agreement, EWT will benefit from true Global connectivity at no extra costs, enabling massive deployments of IoT devices and improving their current operations.
"The Eye in the Sky” is a proven technology
Illegal trade has seen thousands of vultures poisoned across Africa, devastating populations, and driving them rapidly towards extinction in the wild. Scavenging mammals, including Lions, Hyaenas, and Leopards, are also severely impacted by poisoning. A key factor limiting the capacity to reduce or avoid the large loss of wildlife to poisoning is our ability to locate and respond quickly to poisoning events. The early detection of a poison source and the decontamination of a poisoning scene radically reduce the further loss of wildlife. Fast action also allows response teams to save surviving wildlife.
To address this ominous threat in southern and east Africa, the Endangered Wildlife Trust has harnessed the natural sentinel and foraging behavior of vultures to our advantage and coupled this with novel GPS-tracking technology; developing a pioneering rapid poisoning detection system, which we call Eye in the Sky. This system closely monitors the behavioral signatures in GPS-tracked vultures to remotely detect the presence of poison sources and feeding events associated with potentially poisoned-laced carcasses. Using this rapid detection system, the EWT has already started to reduce the impact of wildlife poisoning in southern Africa significantly.
Presently covering approximately 15 million km 2 with over 380 vultures of five different species, the EWT’s Eye in the Sky is a game-changer. Monitored through EarthRanger software, the GPS-equipped birds send alerts to various front-end platforms, enabling rapid response teams across Africa to react swiftly to poisoning events.
In the past year alone, this revolutionary system has successfully identified 15 poisoning events. The quick response allowed teams to rescue over 100 highly threatened vultures, swiftly eliminate the poison sources, and decontaminate the scenes, ultimately saving countless lives. The Eye in the Sky is a testament to innovative technology's power in preserving our planet’s invaluable wildlife heritage.
Alison Janicke, EWT's Head of Business Development, said: "Sateliot's support will significantly impact our organization. This financial relief will enable us to allocate these funds to other critical conservation work. Beyond the monetary savings, partnering with Sateliot will also spare us some time and effort spent on fundraising, allowing us to invest that time in on-the-ground conservation activities."
Gianluca Redolfi, CCO at Sateliot, envisions a future where satellite connectivity revolutionizes how NGOs engage in conservation efforts. "By harnessing Sateliot's advanced capacity allocation techniques, NGOs can tap into free satellite capacity during specific time slots and locations at no extra cost." This breakthrough strategy ensures efficient data transmission, empowering NGOs to maximize their impact on the ground.
