Heft

Applied AI for protected places

We deploy AI on the ground with the people who look after protected places.

Reserve teams bring their hardest problem. We give them AI tools and build with them, on their data and under their rules. What we build for one reserve becomes a tool the next reserve can use from day one.

Tell us about your place

Case studies 1 of 3

North Devon: seeing where a sewage spill goes

The coast was missing an ocean model, so nobody could see where a sewage spill went. We built one for 14 sewage pipes and 7 beaches. It shows spills from the Croyde sea outfall reaching Croyde’s bathing beach, where the Wave Project runs surf therapy for children.

Model particles released from the Croyde sea outfall, spreading along the coast of North DevonCROYDE BEACHBATHING WATERPUTSBOROUGHCROYDE SEA OUTFALL
One spill from the Croyde sea outfall, tracked by the model. Prototype: it shows where a spill can go, not when, and nobody has checked it against a real spill yet.

Croyde: the sewage spills the beach alert leaves out

In 2025 the Croyde sea outfall spilled for 1,252.5 hours. The official record says it doesn’t affect the bathing water, so its spills never trigger the beach alert. The same regulator is paying to fix it by 2030 as a bathing-water problem. We built the case from public records, in a letter the reserve can send to get these spills counted.

Hours the Croyde sea outfall spilled sewage each month in 2025: 1,252.5 in the year, 30.8 of them in the bathing season, 566 in DecemberBATHING SEASON30.8 HOURSJFMAMJJASOND566 HOURSHOURS OF SPILLING EACH MONTH, 2025. TOTAL 1,252.5
97% of those hours fell outside the bathing season, and people surf Croyde all winter.

Carriacou: where to look for mangrove recovery after Hurricane Beryl

We compared satellite images from before the hurricane and two years after. They show where the mangroves are less green than before, and the 16 spots where a ground team should survey first to see what really recovered.

Southwest Carriacou, with mangroves as Global Mangrove Watch mapped them in 2020 and the 16 one-hectare squares to visit firstTYRREL BAY
Mangroves, 2020 Survey these first. Clouds hid most of the mangroves, and nobody has surveyed these spots yet.

How we work

  1. We start with your problem. We learn the place and the question that matters most to you now.
  2. We build it with you. We set your team up with AI tools and work alongside you to build what’s missing, from your own data and records.
  3. You run it, and we stay close. Your team owns what you build and keeps growing it, with our support as your needs change.

Each place makes the next one easier

Each reserve we work with fills gaps in the data and leaves behind a method tested on real ground, like the beach method that went from Devon to California. Over time those methods add up to shared tools that any reserve, funder or government can use. Each reserve keeps its own data, decisions and history.

We also work with the groups that build open AI models, maps and datasets for conservation. We put their tools to work in reserves and tell them plainly what held up on the ground and what didn’t, so each new version serves the field better.

Get a deep dive on your reserve

Email us. We’ll run an AI deep dive and send you a report to review: funding you could go after, the threats your place faces, opportunities, and the research that applies to it. Then we’ll set up a call to learn what you need. It’s free.

Funders and technology partners who want this to reach more places, write to us too.

Get a free deep dive on your reserve hello@heft.earth