Indigenous rights’ groups and WWF International are beginning to train Andean tribes people deep within the Amazon rainforest in the use of drones so that they, as forest-dwelling specialists, can help protect wildlife, and identify, compile evidence for, and report on, illegal logging activities.

The WWF teamed up with the Kaninde Ethno-Environmental Defense Association, a civil-society made up of biologists, foresters, cartographers, anthropologists, specialists in healthcare and information technology, and journalists to run a drone-operating course for five separate Indigenous tribes including the Uru Eu Wau Wau, who reside in the state of Rondonia in western Brazil.

With the drones, tribes have been able to create high-resolution images, video, and GPS coordinates of logging sites, Brazil nut tree stands—a valuable sources of income—and prime habitat for vulnerable species like the harpy eagle, the largest in the accipitridae family, and a bird that’s sacred to the Uru Eu Wau Wau.