AI is developing fast, and conservation professionals are using it more each year for research, analysis, communications, fundraising and planning. Camera trap identification, satellite based habitat monitoring and automated poaching detection are already part of many teams' daily work, and that list keeps growing.

We have drafted a new Best Practice: AI for Wildlife Conservation to help conservationists understand what AI is, how it works, and how to use it effectively and responsibly. The manual covers three main parts.

Understanding AI walks through what AI is, the difference between pattern recognition AI and generative AI, how each one works from input to output, and how these tools are likely to change over the next few years, including the growing autonomy of AI systems and what that could mean for conservation work.

Principles sets out four attitudes we think should run through every use of AI in conservation. Use with moderation asks you to match the weight of a tool to what a task needs. See past the bias covers checking AI output for the biases baked into its training data before it goes out under your name. Keep people in the loop keeps a named person responsible for anything an AI tool helps produce. Skim off the slop is about making sure anything you publish with AI assistance is worth a reader's time.

Using AI is a practical process for producing one piece of work with AI, from designing the output and selecting the right tool, through instructing it with context and a clear brief, to verifying what it produces against your own sources, finalising the piece and disclosing AI's part when the audience would want to know.

Before we publish, we are looking for expert peer reviewers from across the conservation sector. We would welcome input from anyone with experience in AI for conservation communications, AI for conservation research, AI for conservation fundraising, AI integration into conservation technology such as camera traps or monitoring drones, or the ethics of responsible AI use.

Our best practices get downloaded thousands of times by conservationists worldwide. A small improvement you suggest could strengthen a resource that will be used by practitioners working in very different conservation contexts and with very different levels of AI experience. Every review, comment and suggestion will be acknowledged.

Closing date for reviews: 22 September 2026

Want to help? Complete this short access form and the link to the document will be provided once you submit:

https://forms.gle/trF5rmwsJ7paP8687

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