Five-year rainforest tech competition culminates with four winners

Limelight Rainforest, a team of ecologists, robotics engineers and Indigenous scientists, has won first place in a $10 million rainforest tech competition.
At the finals in Brazil in July, the team deployed canopy rafts, drones and artificial intelligence models to identify and detect the highest amount of biodiversity from a forest plot within 24 hours.
Three other teams were also recognized for their work in developing tech solutions to monitor rainforests around the world.
The five-year XPRIZE Rainforest competition was launched in 2019 to identify solutions to automate rainforest monitoring.

The task at hand was nothing short of grueling.

In the depths of the Amazon Rainforest earlier this year, it was a mad scramble as six teams deployed cutting-edge technology to survey a 100-hectare (250-acre) plot of the forest within 24 hours. The only caveat: they wouldn’t be allowed to set foot inside the forest.

So they flew drones in, deployed robots, and unleashed a flurry of artificial intelligence models.

In the end, the team that identified the highest amount of biodiversity in the plot — 250 different species and 700 unique taxa — walked away with the first prize in, what one of the participants dubbed, the “Biodiversity Olympics.”

Limelight Rainforest, a multidisciplinary team of ecologists, robotics engineers and Indigenous scientists brought together by a group at Colorado Mesa University in the U.S., was awarded $5 million in the five-year-long XPRIZE Rainforest competition. The team’s win brings to a close the $10 million competition that aimed to identify solutions that could automate the monitoring and protection of rainforests around the world. Three other teams were also recognized and awarded prize money for the solutions they showcased at the final round of testing in Manaus in the Brazilian state of Amazonas.

*Limelight Rainforest, a team of ecologists, robotics engineers and Indigenous scientists, has won first place in the $10 million XPRIZE Rainforest competition. Image courtesy of XPRIZE Foundation.*

XPRIZE Rainforest was organized by California-based nonprofit XPRIZE Foundation. The competition was launched in 2019, and the 300 teams that initially joined were eventually winnowed down to 13 teams for the semifinals testing in Singapore in 2023. A year later, six finalists converged in Brazil, where they were tasked with showcasing their tech solutions while also highlighting their efforts to collaborate with Indigenous communities.

“These tools are ideally suited for implementation to monitor, manage and protect tropical rainforests globally,” Peter Houlihan, executive vice president of biodiversity and conservation at the XPRIZE Foundation, said in a press statement. “And to accelerate the achievement of the goals of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework by 2030.”

*The final round of testing of the XPRIZE Foundation’s rainforest competition took place in July in Manaus in the Brazilian state of Amazonas. Image courtesy of ETH BiodivX.*

An eponymous canopy raft — fitted with cameras, microphones and light traps to attract insects for DNA sampling — was the MVP of Limelight Rainforest’s solution. The team deployed drones to not only drop these rafts on trees, but also to map canopies and tree crowns to measure tree diversity, carbon storage and forest structure. They also developed machine-learning models to identify and classify species from the data, and deployed a robotic device, also launched by drone, to swab leaves and collect water samples for DNA testing.

The three runner-up teams, Map of Life Rapid Assessment, Brazilian Team and ETH BiodivX, also used various combinations of drones, canopy rafts, artificial intelligence models and software suites to survey the plot.

In a press statement after the winners were announced, Thomas Walla, the team lead for Limelight Rainforest, said he hoped to get the technology his team developed into the hands of people working to protect ecosystems around the world.

When he spoke with Mongabay after the final round of testing, Walla said he’d never “in my wildest dreams” thought about gathering such a huge group of people to spend a massive amount of time and energy developing a biodiversity monitoring solution.

“I have gained a lot of faith in the human spirit,” he said in August, “and realized that humans can make some amazing things when they’re given the right conditions.”

Abhishyant Kidangoor is a staff writer at Mongabay. Find him on 𝕏 @AbhishyantPK.

Banner Image: Members of Limelight Rainforest assembling a canopy raft which was fitted with cameras, microphones and light traps to survey a forest plot in the Amazon Rainforest. Image courtesy of Ari Grele.