This is partly driven by the need for novelty to publish in high-impact journals, but there are also other possible advantages of high-tech approaches. First, you can standardize them. If you have done phenological observations yourself, you will know that however hard you try to formalize what you do there is always a subjective element. Change the observer and you get a 'step' in the results. Standardizing across sites so you can compare them is even more difficult. Secondly, the view of a drone flying over the canopy can potentially be used to calibrate satellite observations, leading eventually to the 'holy grail' of canopy phenology studies: 24-7 global phenology monitoring. This is what the Earth System Models used to model global climate really need. If you have the funding and people, do both, since no tech approach is as good as human vision and the brain that interprets it, and what happens under the canopy is at least as important for reproductive phenology.

I totally agree, Colin,

At a time where the IUCN Primate Specialist Group is incorporating local management/involvement in fostering a conservation ethos/outlook, making a sudden switch to drone technology (for example) would not, I think, be the most productive route to follow. We've already established that local engagement is key for conservation efforts; Having on-the-ground local collaborators to conduct things like tree phenology surveys, or monitoring home range use of primate groups under study, would provide data that could not be replicated by the use of drones. Drones could provide useful data on the extent of forest fragmentation, or what's going on on forest edges. But, I think they would best be used as part of an holistic research approach.

I hear many researchers struggling harder to find those local powers. In many cases it's rare to have a person with the spirit, knowledge and experience to do field surveys properly. This era is an era of higher dependency on technology, we all go there. We should find the advantages and improve the ways we interpret data driven by different tools.

We need to strike a balance between technology and local knowledge , since in the mad rush for modernisation in agriculture, none of them can be compromised...

What an interesting question to think about. The Brazilian context is showing me that this is a political decision; it is related to the world view of professionals and decision makers. To mention a recent case, the new environment minister criticized the management of the Amazon Fund (see https://www.reuters.com/article/us-brazil-politics-amazon/brazil-to-revamp-amazon-fund-after- finding-irregularities-minister-idUSKCN1SN2BZ) and suspended contracts/partnerships with NGOs. The high percentage of expenses with payment of personnel was considered irregularity (and this was not based on legal criteria, it was an opinion of the new team). While trust in people is low, the minister plans to hire a new company to monitor deforestation, to aggregate new technologies. Technically, both 'tech and local' have strengths and weaknesses, what each one prefers is related to their experiences and beliefs.

This is partly driven by the need for novelty to publish in high-impact journals, but there are also other possible advantages of high-tech approaches. First, you can standardize them. If you have done phenological observations yourself, you will know that however hard you try to formalize what you do there is always a subjective element. Change the observer and you get a 'step' in the results. Standardizing across sites so you can compare them is even more difficult. Secondly, the view of a drone flying over the canopy can potentially be used to calibrate satellite observations, leading eventually to the 'holy grail' of canopy phenology studies: 24-7 global phenology monitoring. This is what the Earth System Models used to model global climate really need. If you have the funding and people, do both, since no tech approach is as good as human vision and the brain that interprets it, and what happens under the canopy is at least as important for reproductive phenology.

Interestingly , many of the high tech cincepts have emerged from local and older arts of agriculture , we often call indigenous technology as a part of good agricultural practices.

As always, it will depend on your question: for some studies, technology will work better than field assistants.

... and on costs. Difficulties associated with securing funds for long-term field projects may promote the use of tech that allows for fewer people to get the work done in less time, or remotely. Here in Mexico field assistants get paid a minimum of US$6 per day + insurance, and nobody sends one person alone to the forest, so this means that in a typical year I'll spend a minimum of ca. US$3,000 in wages. In bad years (no funding for salaries) tech could allow for data collection to continue.

Is the allure of high tech that the study appears to be more elegant or sophisticated and increases the appeal for publication? Is this the case of technology oriented work, we have it, lets use it and see what we get? The approaches can be and should be complementary. A similar issue with using automated recorders to do acoustic surveys of birds. A good local ornithologist can give more valuable information than a recorder can not, but a recorder can do the tedious intense monitoring that a person may not do. We are using a combination drone-people to search for sloths in tropical forest. to find sloths it takes a team of 4 doijng active search and can take 7-8 hrs daily. A good drone, expensive as it is, could find them faster using IR sensors. The assitants would go to the field and collect the necessary data. Drones can be used in combination with telemetry to dowload remotely. But local assistants still, like Colin said, provide other advantages related to conservation; the most important being local presence and involvement and the multiplier effect.

cheers

It is always advisable to have a suitavle marriage between locally devised practices and technologies developed from time to time ..

Good question!

I agree that local involvement is often undervalued and underutilized and that technology is, in contrast, often oversold. I have looked quite a bit in the past at what discourages biologists and conservationists from engaging with local people more*. There is no shortage of reasons. Here are some:

Most people who work in biological field science have trained as biophysical scientists and are good with data and technical methods. Understandably, these people may not feel so at ease with people as with technology.

Working with local people brings in unknowns over which a biologist will not have control. Success is not guaranteed and plans are less certain. There is often skepticism about the effectiveness and durability of local involvement in data collection. With technology there is generally a greater sense of control (illusory?).

There can be problems with working across language and cultural barriers. There may be doubts over the reliability of the information collected and how it matches with our own (presumably technical) understanding. Many of these doubts are well known in the social science literature where it is clear that local informants can be strategic and manipulative, modifying or fabricating information for a range of reasons. The quality of the data may appear good ... but can you be certain? If something very surprising were reported (and you were not present to verify it) would you believe it? How can you judge? How objective are such data and can we account for the uncertainties? With most technical methods we can summarize the uncertainties in a defined, agreed and formal manner.

Even among the social and political scientist there is skepticism and debate about the word ‘participation’ and just what it means and should imply (are we really collaborating or are we exploiting etc?). Such issues coupled to politically engaged and/or zealous ethics committees etc may scare people off the topic. Technology is less contentious.

Maybe, also many people are unaware of these wider benefits of working with local people. The academic community is somewhat divided (and locally narrow minded?) on this. Certainly there are disciplinary issues ... if you gather data one way and not another you are more likely to get into certain journals and be read by others with similar views and prejudices. Technology avoids much of the problem.

Finally, if we (as biologists) had broader training on working with people (as field assistants and otherwise) and saw all the benefits and advantages as clearly as the challenges, I am sure it would be beneficial. I am sure technology can be useful in all kinds of ways, but we shouldn't miss out on the opportunities for working with local people.

How do we fix this? That would be a subject for another Q&A! But worthwhile!

*See, e.g.

ttps://www.researchgate.net/publication/7080853_Tropical_biologists_local_people_and_conservation_New_opportunities_for_collaboration

I shall opt for a local knowledgeable person even if I can afford such a machine or robot. Learning directly from field observations is a precious lifetime achievement. It increases our patience and tolerance while working in field conditions. Drones can only be used in highly restricted, inaccessible and difficult study areas. Otherwise these robots will increase the distance between us and nature and will make us lazy. This is my personal opinion. Other can differ.

I offer a couple of different threads:

(1) Cost - it costs almost as much to recruit local talent as it does to pay them. Alternatively you can partner with local organizations who are cassh starved and may need to charge more than the cost of providing a local field assistant (my experiences years ago in Belize). Arguably this is the cost of doign business, at least in merging economies, but tell that to an underfunded reseacher.

(2) Data quality - the reliability quality of the data collected by technology may be more measurable even if it is not better. For data nerds, it is what is know about quality of the data (error, variance) than the accuracy of the data themselves which is most important.

(3) obsession with technology - Most scientists view using the latest technology as a measure of doing "cool" science.

(4) Holistic thinking - To your point, most scientists are myopic about their work and don't consider themselves responsible for things the community engagement in nature and science and professional development of others.

I really like this line of thinking. To add to your thoughts and conservation value of having "boots on the ground" in my experience field assistants being out there collecting data think while they are doing it, and in so doing they come up with good questions which can improve the study and also lead to new hypotheses. Probably most important is this process of direct observation and interaction with nature, that does lead to asking new questions.