17/10/2025
🔎 What happens in the wild when no one is watching?
In the wilderness areas of Lieberose and Jüterbog in eastern Germany, artificial intelligence is helping to answer that question.
There, the Wildnisstiftung is piloting a new approach to ecosystem monitoring. Camera traps, acoustic loggers, and climate sensors record massive volumes of data on species, weather, and human activity. AI then analyzes this data at scale, automatically classifying species, identifying seasonal patterns, and detecting human presence across large, remote landscapes. This opens new possibilities for faster, smarter conservation decisions.
Lieberose and Jüterbog are former military training areas, now protected wildlands spanning more than 15,000 hectares of forests, wetlands, and open heath. They are part of the KI-Nationalpark (AI national park), a collaboration involving 13 German national parks and two wilderness areas. The project’s goal is to modernize biodiversity monitoring and deepen our understanding of ecosystems as climate buffers and natural carbon stores.
We are a long-time partner of the Wildnisstiftung, working together to safeguard biodiversity, monitor wildlife, and connect these areas to Germany’s growing wilderness network.
At FZS, we believe that effective conservation must be grounded in science. Supporting innovation in monitoring and research is part of our long-term commitment to protecting wild places with evidence-based decisions.
Photo credit: Die Wildnisstiftung
