Paper short abstract:

This paper reviews some of the general trends exhibited in the "sonic eco-surveillant" turn in conservation, drawing on examples from around the world. We exmaine some emerging social and political tensions, whilst noting important benefits of acoustical approaches to conservation.

Paper long abstract:

In forests around the world, acoustically mediated processes of datafication are creating vast amounts of data out of diverse ecosystemic and biologic processes. The observatories, arrays, and portable sensing tools now proliferating as flexible, accurate and affordable tools of conservation monitoring posit “datafied sound” as a solution to a range of social and technical challenges in conservation landscapes. This paper reviews some of the general trends exhibited in the "sonic eco-surveillant" turn in conservation. I pay special attention to the capacious nature of the data being generated: not simply intentional signals (e.g., chirps, calls, trills), but a host of indirect, accidental, and incidental sonic traces too (e.g., whispers, breaking branches, gunshots, human voices). As vast domains of life are becoming susceptible to being processed via forms of analysis that can be automated on a large-scale, new social and political questions are arising, demanding new forms of attention to the environment-making nature of digital operations.