Cameras, microphones and AI counted 492 species in one corner of Brazil's Atlantic Forest

You do not need a research institute to take a forest's census — you need patience, cheap cameras and neighbours who care. Over six years, a citizen-science survey in a small Atlantic Forest property in southeast Brazil combined camera traps, sound recordings and AI identification apps, with community validation, to document 492 species — a portrait of one of the world's most endangered and species-rich forests, published in PLOS One. The Atlantic Forest has lost most of its original cover, yet fragments like this one still shelter an astonishing density of life. The team has shared its full inventory through the Global Biodiversity Information Facility and Brazil's biodiversity information system, and argues the recipe — affordable hardware, AI assistance, local knowledge — can be copied by non-professional naturalists on small properties everywhere, speeding up biodiversity surveys where scientists alone could never keep pace.

SDG 15 · Life on land — Mechanism: community action