UPDATE 5 September 2026 – A message from Jack Kinross

Many thanks for visiting Mission Leopard. A few days ago as I write this, a terrible tragedy struck Nepal, currently my main base. Thousands of people have been killed in an event which has rocked the nation, a deadly flood occurring after a massive landslide in the Langtang Himalaya on the Nepal–Tibet border. Due to the scale and seriousness of this event, we are stepping up efforts in the development and deployment of LeopardEye so that early warning and monitoring systems can be in place to help avoid incidents of such massive loss of life as has just occurred. Landscape monitoring to mitigate human-wildlife conflict and wildlife crime has long been the focal point of LeopardEye so it is logical that we increase resources so as to combine human safety improvements in a holistic approach in fragile habitats, especially the Himalaya. Please go through this site to further understand our work and there’s more information especially with regard to these latest developments at my Substack– The Leopard. I’ll update at all platforms as appropriate. Please read below to understand more about LeopardEye and if you are new to the site, please read Why We Must Protect the Leopard as a starting point on the species we use as the flagship for our work.

LeopardEye

Advanced Landscape Monitoring for Wildlife, People and Remote Environments

LeopardEye is evolving from a wildlife monitoring and early-warning system into a resilient, multi-layer landscape intelligence platform.

Its original purpose was straightforward: use technology to help protect wildlife, reduce human–wildlife conflict and support people working in difficult conservation environments.

That mission remains central.

But the environments in which wildlife and people live are changing rapidly, and the technology required to monitor them must change with them.

LeopardEye is therefore being developed to combine ground-based cameras and sensors, satellite communications, satellite Earth observation, edge intelligence, environmental monitoring and secure data transmission into a single modular architecture.

The objective is simple:

See earlier. Understand more. Communicate when conventional networks fail. Help the right people respond.

A New Direction for LeopardEye

The catastrophic Himalayan disaster of 26 August 2026 demonstrated with terrible clarity why remote landscape monitoring needs to evolve.

A major slope failure involving ice and rock in the high Himalaya generated a devastating debris flow and flood that travelled approximately 100 kilometres downstream. Satellite imagery subsequently became an important tool for understanding the source, scale and consequences of the event. USGS used satellite imagery to map affected areas, while ESA imagery demonstrated the dramatic changes between pre- and post-event conditions. (USGS)

More significantly for the future of monitoring, analysis reported after the disaster indicates that satellite imagery from the days and weeks preceding the collapse may have shown accelerated movement of the glacier–rock system.

This raises an important question:

What if satellite observation, ground-based monitoring and intelligent analysis could be brought together before an emergency rather than being used primarily to understand one afterwards?

That question is now central to LeopardEye’s development.

From Wildlife Monitoring to Landscape Intelligence

LeopardEye is no longer being conceived simply as:

Camera → 4G → Server

The developing architecture is:

SPACE → AIR → GROUND → EDGE → COMMUNICATIONS → ANALYSIS → AUTHORITY

Each layer provides something different.

Space

Satellite Earth observation can provide broad-area surveillance of landscapes that are too large, remote or inaccessible to monitor continuously from the ground.

Potential applications include monitoring:

  • glaciers and glacial lakes;
  • river systems;
  • snow and ice conditions;
  • landslides and unstable slopes;
  • flood and debris-flow impacts;
  • habitat change;
  • forest disturbance;
  • infrastructure and access routes;
  • changes in remote terrain that may otherwise go unnoticed.

Air

Where appropriate, drones and other aerial systems can provide targeted inspection between satellite-scale observation and ground-level monitoring.

Ground

LeopardEye stations can provide persistent, highly localised observation using cameras and environmental sensors.

These systems can potentially monitor:

  • wildlife;
  • human activity;
  • water levels;
  • river conditions;
  • weather;
  • movement;
  • environmental change;
  • infrastructure;
  • other indicators appropriate to a particular deployment.

Edge

Where communications are limited, processing can increasingly occur at the point of observation.

Instead of transmitting everything, a LeopardEye station may eventually be able to identify significant events locally and transmit only the most important information.

Communications

LeopardEye is being developed beyond dependence upon terrestrial 4G networks.

Where available, 4G and future terrestrial networks remain valuable primary communications channels.

Where cellular infrastructure is absent, unreliable or destroyed, satellite communications may provide an alternative pathway.

The intended architecture is therefore:

4G where available → satellite where necessary → local storage when neither is available.

This creates resilience rather than dependence upon any single communications network.

Satellite Technology Has Two Roles

A major change in LeopardEye’s direction is the recognition that satellites should not be considered merely as a replacement for cellular connectivity.

They have two distinct functions.

1. Satellite Communications

Satellite connectivity can potentially allow remote LeopardEye stations to transmit information from areas beyond reliable terrestrial network coverage.

This is particularly important in mountainous and remote environments where installing and maintaining cellular infrastructure can be difficult.

2. Satellite Earth Observation

The satellite itself can become part of LeopardEye’s observation system.

Satellite imagery can provide the wide-area perspective necessary to understand changes taking place across an entire landscape.

Ground LeopardEye stations can then provide detailed, persistent observation at specific locations.

The combination is potentially much more powerful than either system alone.

Satellite observation tells us what may be changing across the landscape.
Ground LeopardEye systems can tell us what is happening at the point of concern.

From Detection to Change Detection

One of the most important principles guiding future LeopardEye development will be change detection.

Rather than simply asking:

What is there?

LeopardEye should increasingly ask:

What has changed?

A satellite image of a mountain may be useful.

A sequence of satellite observations showing movement, changing water extent, altered terrain or other developing conditions can be considerably more useful.

The same principle applies on the ground.

A LeopardEye station can establish a baseline and then identify significant departures from normal conditions.

The future system will therefore seek to combine:

Baseline → Observation → Change → Corroboration → Assessment → Alert

This does not mean that every detected change represents a disaster.

Automated systems must not create false certainty.

Instead, LeopardEye is intended to provide evidence and indicators that can help qualified authorities and specialists decide whether action is required.

Monitoring the Source, the Pathway and the Receiving Environment

The Himalayan disaster also reinforces another principle that is important to LeopardEye.

Monitoring should not concentrate solely on the location where people are ultimately affected.

In many environmental emergencies, the source of the problem may be far upstream or high in the mountains.

A useful monitoring architecture therefore needs to consider:

SOURCE → PATHWAY → RECEIVING ENVIRONMENT

For example:

Glacier / slope / lake
↓
Tributary / river
↓
Communities / infrastructure / settlements

A similar principle applies to wildlife protection:

Habitat
↓
Movement corridor
↓
Human interface
↓
Community

And to wildlife trafficking:

Protected area
↓
Access route
↓
Transport corridor
↓
Border / marketplace

LeopardEye is being developed around this broader understanding of landscape intelligence.

Resilience When Networks Fail

Remote monitoring is of limited value if the system stops functioning when communications fail.

LeopardEye therefore aims to build resilience into the architecture itself.

A future remote station should ideally be capable of:

  • operating from solar-supported power;
  • storing data locally;
  • continuing observation during communications outages;
  • detecting significant events locally;
  • transmitting through terrestrial networks when available;
  • using satellite communications when terrestrial networks are unavailable;
  • transmitting stored information when connectivity returns.

In other words:

A communications failure should not automatically become a monitoring failure.

This principle is particularly important in disaster environments where the infrastructure required to communicate may itself be damaged or destroyed.

Environmental and Emergency Monitoring

Although LeopardEye originated in wildlife protection, the same technological architecture has applications beyond wildlife.

Potential future applications include:

Glacial and High-Mountain Environments

  • glacial lake monitoring;
  • changing ice and snow conditions;
  • landscape change;
  • unstable terrain;
  • potential hazard indicators.

Flood and River Monitoring

  • water-level observation;
  • changing river conditions;
  • debris and sediment movement;
  • flood impacts;
  • downstream monitoring.

Landslide and Terrain Monitoring

  • visual monitoring of known high-risk areas;
  • detection of landscape change;
  • post-event assessment;
  • support for field teams.

Infrastructure and Access

  • remote roads;
  • bridges;
  • hydropower infrastructure;
  • isolated settlements;
  • access routes affected by environmental events.

Wildlife and Conservation

  • wildlife movement;
  • habitat monitoring;
  • human–wildlife conflict;
  • anti-poaching;
  • patrol support;
  • evidence collection.

The objective is not to turn every LeopardEye deployment into a disaster-monitoring station.

Instead, the platform is being designed so that the same underlying architecture can be configured for different monitoring requirements.

A Multi-Layer Intelligence System

The longer-term LeopardEye concept can therefore be represented as:

SATELLITE EARTH OBSERVATION
↓
AERIAL / DRONE OBSERVATION
↓
LEOPARDEYE GROUND STATIONS
↓
ENVIRONMENTAL SENSORS
↓
EDGE PROCESSING & DETECTION
↓
4G / SATELLITE COMMUNICATIONS
↓
SECURE DATA PLATFORM
↓
ANALYSIS & CHANGE DETECTION
↓
ALERT / INFORMATION TO AUTHORISED USERS

The purpose is not to generate more data for its own sake.

It is to turn multiple sources of observation into useful, timely and appropriately qualified information.

Wildlife Protection Remains at the Core

This expansion does not represent a departure from LeopardEye’s original mission.

The protection of wildlife remains fundamental.

LeopardEye was developed because threatened species increasingly require better information, faster detection and more effective responses.

The same principle applies to landscapes and people.

A system capable of monitoring a remote Himalayan landscape for environmental hazards can also be configured to monitor wildlife habitat.

A communications architecture capable of keeping a camera connected beyond 4G can also transmit information from a remote conservation site.

A change-detection system capable of identifying environmental disturbance can potentially identify human intrusion into protected habitat.

The technology is therefore deliberately dual-purpose and modular.

Toward a Resilient Himalayan Monitoring Network

Nepal’s extraordinary geography makes this direction particularly relevant.

Large areas of the country are mountainous, remote and difficult to access. Cellular coverage is uneven. Weather can change rapidly. Roads and infrastructure can be damaged or destroyed by environmental events.

At the same time, Nepal contains globally important wildlife habitats, fragile mountain ecosystems, major river systems, glacial environments and communities living in close relationship with these landscapes.

There is therefore a strong case for developing monitoring systems that can operate where conventional infrastructure cannot always be relied upon.

LeopardEye’s development is increasingly focused on that challenge.

The ambition is not to claim that technology can prevent every disaster.

It cannot.

Nor should automated systems replace scientists, conservation professionals, emergency responders or government authorities.

Instead, LeopardEye aims to provide better observation, better communications and better information so that the people responsible for making decisions can have more evidence available to them, potentially earlier than would otherwise be possible.

The LeopardEye Vision

LeopardEye is moving toward a future in which a remote landscape can be continuously observed through a combination of technologies rather than a single device.

Satellites provide the wide view.

Ground stations provide the close view.

Sensors provide measurements.

Edge intelligence identifies potentially significant events.

Communications keep information moving.

Analysis connects the observations.

Authorities make the decisions.

That is the direction in which LeopardEye is now developing.

From protecting individual animals to understanding the landscapes on which wildlife and people depend.

From relying on one communications network to building resilient connectivity.

From recording events to detecting meaningful change.

From isolated devices to an integrated environmental intelligence platform.

Looking Ahead

LeopardEye is currently being developed and tested as a modular system. Hardware, communications technologies, satellite integration, environmental sensors, edge processing and analytical capabilities will continue to evolve as field requirements become clearer.

Some elements will be developed in partnership with technology providers, conservation organisations, scientists and government authorities.

The ultimate objective is to develop a system capable of operating in some of the world’s most difficult environments while providing information that is genuinely useful to those responsible for protecting wildlife, communities and landscapes.

LeopardEye is therefore becoming more than a wildlife camera system.

It is becoming a platform for seeing, communicating and understanding remote landscapes.

And where the landscape changes, the objective is increasingly simple:

See the change. Understand the significance. Communicate the information. Support the response.

The stronger approach is what I’ve used above: describe the event accurately, explain what satellite observation demonstrated, and then use it as the rationale for LeopardEye’s development. That will age much better if this page becomes the site’s homepage.

I also think the timing is unusually compelling. The post-event satellite work has already demonstrated the exact principle we’re proposing: USGS used before/after imagery for hazard mapping, ESA demonstrated rapid satellite observation of the flood, and research reported in Nature indicates that pre-event imagery may have contained evidence of accelerating movement before the collapse. (USGS)

For the new header, I would consequently move away from an image that is primarily “leopard + technology.” The visual identity should now communicate SPACE → LANDSCAPE → GROUND → INTELLIGENCE, while retaining the leopard as the originating symbol. That will also make considerably more sense if this page becomes the front door to a standalone LeopardEye site.