Panda Protection: How technology is reshaping conservation in China

From reconnaissance to research, technology is transforming wildlife conservation in China. But what has changed for those working in the industry and what impact might this have on different species? CGTN's Nicole Ng reports.

They may be China's most beloved animal, but they're also notoriously lazy. The chance of coming across panda tracks in the wild has always been low. Those tracking and monitoring them can spend days if not weeks at the job.

GOU ANRAN Ranger, Dujiangyan Erlangmiao Protection Station "We have to walk long distances into the forest up the mountain. Cars can't reach those places, so we just walk."

Rangers used to also walk to investigate fire hazards and illegal activity. But drones now do a lot of this work. And gone are the days of logging GPS coordinates. New apps help feed rangers' findings straight into a database.

GOU ANRAN Ranger, Dujiangyan Erlangmiao Protection Station "On the phone you can see how far we've patrolled every week and every month as well as which areas. And the control center can see where we are and what animals we've found, because we can upload this information in real time."

NICOLE NG Dujiangyan, Sichuan "New technology has done more than just bring about changes for rangers and their work. It's also giving researchers a clearer picture of the overall conservation story."

This was the theme of an event by Huawei this week. The company brought together experts to ask how technology has transformed their industry.

Ahimsa Campos-Arceiz remembers when he had to go into the field himself.

AHIMSA CAMPOS-ARCEIZ Research Fellow, Southeast Asian Biodiversity, Research Center Chinese Academy of Sciences "I began working with maps, when we didn't have much remote sensing or we didn't use satellites. So I was a map maker back in the late 90s."

But he can spend less time gathering data now and more time on what he calls the "bigger picture science".

AHIMSA CAMPOS-ARCEIZ Research Fellow, Southeast Asian Biodiversity, Research Center Chinese Academy of Sciences "We can collect better information, much bigger volumes than we can manage, we can store, we can transmit, we can process and we can analyse to draw conclusions."

Processing that information is key to protection, so is finding out how to use the success of one species to help others. Nicole Ng, CGTN.