Surrey wildlife experts try to save local habitats - with a little help from space!
Satellites and artificial intelligence are part of the project
The University of Surrey and Surrey Wildlife Trust have come together to save our local habitat using an unlikely source - space!
This does not mean our professors and nature-lovers will not be shooting off on rockets - but instead will be using satellites and artificial intelligence to find the best ways to save local wildlife.
This novel approach to conservation will use this to map local diverse habitats to work out the best ways to restore our wildlife - one third of which has either already been lost or is in decline.
Andrew Jamieson from Surrey Wildlife Trust is running this project.
He said: "We've got a problem with nature becoming fragmented and disconnected in the landscape.
"One third of recorded species in Surrey have already gone extinct or are being threatened.
"We need to do something about this - we need to bring nature back."
We also spoke to Richard Murphy from the University of Surrey.
He said: "One area of this project that is very exciting is being able to use this high-resolution earth observation from satellites to help support connected networks for biodiversity.
"These new capabilities let us see objects down to around a foot - from space!
"This has huge potential to be able to look at how we can link together patches of habitat - where we may have very desirable biodiversity and create a much larger network."