Colombia Consolidates Network to Strengthen Biodiversity Monitoring with Camera Traps

Colombia, the second country with the largest records of fauna and flora on the planet, required coordination among public institutions, private enterprise, communities, and technological advances to learn about and care for its rich biodiversity. That stage is already being consolidated with the creation of a new network that seeks to generate reliable information to support decision-making for conservation throughout the country.

This is the OTUS Network, which promotes the recognition of biodiversity through the coordination of actors that encourage the use of camera traps and promote various environmental actions in the country. It is the result of joining forces between the Humboldt Institute, Conservation International Colombia (CI), the Regional Autonomous Corporations and Sustainable Development Corporations through Asocars, Wildlife Insights, and Google.

This alliance, whose first phase started in 2024, seeks to expand the geographical and taxonomic coverage of monitoring, as well as generate useful and specialized information that allows effectively influencing decision-makers for the design of conservation and management strategies, explains the Humboldt Institute in a statement.

Data from different regions can be analyzed together

The OTUS Network integrates people, institutions, and technology, and articulates local projects, environmental authorities, research organizations, and protected areas under a standardized methodology, explained Hernando Garcia, director of the Humboldt Institute, in the document. “This allows data produced in different regions of the country to be analyzed and used jointly. This network is key because it contributes to fulfilling the goals of the Convention on Biological Diversity,” he said.

“All camera trap images are processed by Wildlife Insights and are then converted into public records through the Biodiversity Information System of Colombia (SiB Colombia),” specified Garcia, quoted in the statement.

On the other hand, Juan Camilo Narino, from the Colombian Mining Association (ACM), assured that the OTUS Network is much more than a network of camera traps: it is an information infrastructure that connects field monitoring with processing, analysis, and data publication tools. “This allows information to be transformed into useful knowledge for those who make decisions about biodiversity conservation in Colombia. Everyone can be part of this network to know and care for one of our greatest treasures,” he maintained.

According to the Humboldt Institute, the OTUS Network begins a new phase that seeks to add partners and contributions to expand the development of baselines in territory and explore the possibility of directing business investments toward the protection of biodiversity.

These regional baselines, explained the Institute, will allow having standardized information on the state and distribution of fauna in different territories of the country, becoming a strategic input for companies, environmental authorities, and other decision-makers to incorporate biodiversity into project planning, risk management, and the definition of investments with greater knowledge of the territory.

The data show the progress of the OTUS Network

To date, the OTUS Network has camera traps in the Caribbean, Andean, Pacific, and the foothills of the Orinoco and Amazon regions. In 1,141 locations, 868,002 images have been processed, of which 240,777 correspond to validated wildlife records.

“We have consolidated information on 362 species, some threatened, such as the blue-billed curassow (Crax alberti), an endemic bird of Colombia categorized as Critically Endangered; and the tapir (Tapirus terrestris), which is in the Vulnerable category,” Garcia said.

For the Institute, this shows progress in the organization and processing of data generated through camera traps in different regions of the country, which has been achieved with the participation of private companies and national entities. The Colombian Mining Association, Mineros de Colombia, Gramalote Colombia, Minerales Cordoba, Minera Cobre Colombia, Corantioquia, Cornare, the Regional Autonomous Corporation of Valle del Cauca (CVC), and Corpourbana have joined this network with contributions from their camera traps.

“The mining sector alone has contributed with more than 150 cameras installed by the OTUS Network, generating around 15,766 images, which contribute about 6.5% of the total images of the network,” Narino said, for his part.

Camera trap information does not stay in files

The OTUS Network has also developed a data visualization system that facilitates access to and interpretation of monitoring information. Users consult standardized data and have indicators on monitored fauna populations.

The difference lies in the scale of the analyses: project coordinators access information corresponding to monitoring stations and sites under their responsibility. This allows them to monitor the status of monitoring, progress in information processing, and indicators of their project. Environmental authorities visualize these indicators in an integrated manner for all projects within their jurisdiction.

With this network, information generated by camera traps does not stay in files or isolated databases. The records, through Wildlife Insights, are processed with artificial intelligence and subsequently published in SiB Colombia.

In addition, the network began accompanying new publishers of this type of information in SiB Colombia, including environmental authorities such as the Administrative Department of Environmental Management of Cali (DAGMA) and companies such as Mineros de Colombia. The process includes the review, organization, and standardization of data to facilitate its publication and ensure that it can be consulted and integrated with other available information on the country’s biodiversity.