Automated Eye on Nature (AEON) and the Were-Tigers of Belum

Environmental biodiversity, of flora and fauna, is a direct indicator of the general health of the environment and surrounding ecosystem. Ecologists expend a great deal of time and effort collecting this raw data, targeting key biotic indicator taxa, also called bio-indicators. However, methods for collecting bioindicator data largely remain a laborious, time-consuming and manual process. This paper proposes a visionary idea of developing an automated global sensor network for the collection of key bio-indicators, which is an inherently diverse and complex problem, spanning environmental extremes. We outline the ideas for our Automated Eye on Nature in the first part of the paper and then explore an application of the technology in our fictional prototype. The prototype explores potential social and cultural issues involved with deploying this technology which highlights possible complications, which might then be considered and usefully fed back into the initial design phase. We conclude with some open questions that consider how ecologists and other scientists might exploit the capabilities this envisioned technology provides.