TYPE OF SUPPORT
Research Background
Through the Private Sector Pathways (PSP) program, QCIF partnered with the Queensland Herbarium and Biodiversity Science (QHBS) at the Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation (DETSI) to deliver a fully operational AI workflow for wildlife camera‑trap image identification.
The project centred on developing a scalable, production‑ready pipeline supporting the full lifecycle of wildlife image processing—from annotation and dataset curation to model training, large‑scale inference, visualisation and reporting.
Built on secure, high‑performance Azure infrastructure and established computer‑vision tools, the solution provides rapid, reproducible and cost‑effective species identification at national scale.
It also enables continuous model improvement and onboarding of new species.
QCIF Role
QCIF co‑designed and delivered the AI pipeline in close collaboration with DETSI, combining AI‑ready tools, cloud‑native architecture, and research‑infrastructure expertise.
QCIF’s Sustainable Futures team led the technical development, ensuring the platform met DETSI’s operational requirements for performance, security and scalability. The team also ensured the pipeline interoperates with national digital research infrastructure, including the Wildlife Observatory of Australia (WildObs), enabling standardisation and long‑term data integration across systems.
Research Outcome & Impact
The project demonstrates the value of cross‑sector collaboration between government, research infrastructure and private‑sector capabilities.
The resulting platform is already transforming how wildlife camera‑trap data can be processed and used to support evidence‑based environmental decision‑making.
For Queensland, the solution provides a future‑proof foundation for biodiversity monitoring, conservation planning, threatened‑species programs and ecological research. More broadly, it offers a replicable model for deploying trusted, scalable AI solutions to support environmental monitoring across Australia.
This project demonstrates what’s possible when government, research infrastructure and the private sector work closely together. By combining production-ready AI tools with national-scale infrastructure, we delivered a secure, scalable solution that is already transforming how wildlife camera data can be processed and used for decision-making"
Queensland Herbarium and Biodiversity Science (QHBS)
Collaborating Organisations
Queensland Herbarium and Biodiversity Science (QHBS); Department of Environment, Tourism, Science and Innovation (DETSI)