An audacious approach to conservation

New digital and sensor technology provides a huge opportunity to revolutionise conservation, but we lack a plan for deploying the technologies effectively. I argue that environmental research should be concentrated at a small number of 'super-sites' and that the concentrated knowledge from super-sites should be used to develop holistic ecosystem models. These, in turn, should be morphed into digital twin ecosystems by live connecting them with automated environmental monitoring programmes. Data-driven simulations can then help select pathways to achieve locally determined conservation goals, and digital twins could revise and adapt those decisions in real-time. This technology-heavy vision for 'smart conservation' provides a map toward a future defined by more flexible, more responsive, and more efficient management of natural environments.