‘We might lose it forever’

Photo Credit: University of Wisconsin

Zuzana Burivalova studies how animals produce sounds and react to them in order to gauge how successful conservation efforts are. 

According to One Earth, Burivalova is a bioacoustics researcher who started her journey at Oxford University, where she received a bachelor’s in biological sciences. Next, she completed a master’s in environmental science from the University of Geneva.

She continued her education with a Ph.D. in tropical forest conservation and ecology from the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich. She also participated in The Nature Conservancy’s Nature Net Science Fellows program and continued her research with a postdoctoral tenure at Princeton University.

It was there that she became curious about how researchers could measure conservation efforts. It’s hard to monitor the mass biodiversity, making it hard to measure those efforts’ success rate. 

It was in 2019 when Burivalova discovered a way to do just that. According to One Earth, she and her team “affixed small, sensitive recorders to trees within the Indonesian forest. These gadgets, capable of capturing animal vocalizations spanning several hundred meters, offered an acoustic window into the forest’s health.” 

Their recordings could measure the richness of the biodiversity by what was missing. It also detected human disturbances such as gunshots or chainsaws. 

Her journey has led her to the University of Wisconsin, Madison, where she created the Sound Forest Lab. It’s “dedicated to studying the positive and detrimental influence of human activities on various species,” per One Earth. 

Her research has taken her to many parts of the world, including Papua New Guinea, Madagascar, and Borneo. She launched the first bioacoustic workshop in Gabon’s Guinea Coastal forests and Mangroves Bioregion.

Burivalova received the Driving Global Impact award from the journal Nature for her work. It honors scientists who address global challenges.

“With this award, I am further empowered to research how tropical forests can not only sequester carbon but also sustain communities and bolster rich biodiversity,” Burivalova said, per One Earth.

According to Mongabay, conservation efforts are difficult to measure because they are complex. It elaborated that “defining clear objectives and quantitatively measuring the success of conservation efforts is not always possible or feasible.”

GVI, a conservation and community organization, says that conservation efforts to protect nature benefit humans in many ways. These include economic benefits from revenue from tourism and food and the creation of jobs.

Forests are also crucial for clean water and air. According to National Grid, forests are vital for storing polluting gases or sequestering carbon. Protecting these forests is crucial for mitigating a warming planet.

You can also help with conservation efforts by taking local action in your community.

Burivalova is still working hard toward her goals. She spoke about her hopes with Science Friday, saying: “I just wish that we can record soundscapes in all of these intact forests because there are so few remaining. For example, in Madagascar, those forests are disappearing pretty fast. It’s just something I considered almost as a time capsule. We can record it now because otherwise we might lose it forever.”

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