Partnerships
SmartWoodID
This project aims to automate part of wood identification using artificial intelligence (AI). Some wood anatomical features can be classified by species with AI, and this is how SmartWoodID aims to identify scans of wood from species in the Democratic Republic of Congo. SmartWoodID uses samples of the RMCA's xylarium on which annotations of macroscopic features are made.
>> Click here to learn more about SmartWoodID
BopCo
The Barcoding Facility for Organisms and Tissues of Policy Concern (BopCo) is jointly run by the Royal Belgian Institute of Natural Sciences (RBINS) and the Royal Museum for Central Africa (RMCA), and is part of the Belgian federal contribution of the Belgian Science Policy Office (Belspo) to the European Research Infrastructure Consortium LifeWatch. BopCo acts as a focal point for identifying biological materials upon request, by providing access to the expertise and infrastructure necessary to identify organisms of policy concern and their derived products.
>> Click here to learn more about BopCo
World Forest ID
World Forest ID is working at the intersection of science and law to create the data and tools necessary for current policy initiatives, designed to control illicit trade, increase corporate disclosure, support nature-based solutions to climate change and drive systemic change in the food sector, to have real world impact. Trees and plants have chemical, genetic and anatomical signatures that are specific to their species and location of harvest. By collecting and analyzing georeferenced tree and plant samples from around the world, World Forest ID creates AI-enabled spatial models that make it possible to understand the source location of traded products. Using this objective, ground-truthed data models, companies can trade transparently, people can consume responsibly, and governments can prosecute criminal behavior.