Wildlife camera traps and drones can ‘spy’ on women: study

Technologies like camera traps and drones have made monitoring wildlife in forests easier than ever. However a new study has found that these devices in a protected area in northern India also end up monitoring and harassing women who use these forest areas.

“These results have caused quite a stir in the conservation community,” said Chris Sandbrook, study co-author and conservation social scientist at the University of Cambridge, UK, in a statement opinion.

For the study, Cambridge researcher Trishant Simlai interviewed women living in villages around the Corbett Tiger Reserve (CTR) in northern India to understand how they use forest areas and the impact of technologies such as camera traps and drones on them.

Women are permitted to enter some forest fringe areas to collect non-timber forest products such as firewood and grass. But the forest is not just a source of livelihood for them, Simlai noted. It also acts as a refuge from patriarchal surveillance, domestic violence and societal norms. Additionally, it is a space of privacy that allows for companionship with other women.

However, the study found that forest officials sometimes deliberately fly drones over women to harass and discourage them from collecting forest products even though they have the right to do so.

Likewise, camera traps installed by male rangers in the center of the park and in buffer areas frequented by women make women feel like they are being watched and frightened.

This causes some women to change their behavior, speaking or singing more quietly or taking unusual paths to avoid the devices, which increases the risk of encounters with wild animals. Respondents also told Simlai about a case of sexual harassment in 2017, when male forest staff distributed camera trap images of a woman from a marginalized community relieving herself in the forest.

“Almost every aspect of a woman’s life in the forest is influenced by conservation monitoring technologies,” Simlai told Mongabay.

Camera traps were key to estimating tiger numbers and identifying threats in the park, said Rajiv Bhartari, a former forest officer at CTR who was not involved in the study, Mongabay said previously. But while technology gives authorities more power, “it depends on the person how they use it,” he said.

To his surprise, Simlai said he found a case where a woman used camera traps to her advantage: Whenever her husband was drunk and abusive, the woman would run to a nearby camera to escape and record the violence.

“Although this was a single incident and more work is needed, it shows that these technologies can also be used to monitor rather than monitor,” Simlai said.

The study’s findings have implications for how forestry agencies and conservation NGOs use technology to monitor conservation, the researchers say.

“Projects often use these technologies to monitor wildlife, but this (study) shows that we really need to make sure they don’t cause unintended harm,” Sandbrook said.

Banner illustration from Women censoring themselves in front of a camera trap, by Adwait Pawar and Trishant Simlai.