This Incredible Project Uses Old Cell Phones to Stop Illegal Logging and Poaching
Thu, 26 Jun 2014 13:56:08 PDT
While getting Americans to recycle cellphones would surely cut down on e-waste, a San Francisco-based start-up, Rainforest Connection, has come up with a pretty sweet use for last year’s phone model that can save the environment and wildlife: It’s turning old smartphones into real-time listening devices that can stop illegal logging and animal poaching.
Indeed, every 22 months Americans replace their mobile devices, and after we get our shiny new toys, unfortunately, we stick the old ones in drawers, or we chuck them in the trash—to the tune of 150 million per year. But if the devices get in the hands of the Rainforest Connection, they become a powerful tool in the fight to preserve nature.
To do that, the company simply modifies an Android (sorry, Apple fans) operating system and adds a powerful microphone. It’s then able to continuously capture any sounds in the location around the phone. And, since there’s no power socket in the forest, the devices are also tricked out with modified solar panels that can keep them running.
Once the smartphone is altered, the Rainforest Connection installs the device high up on a tree, where it’s well-hidden from the eyes of illegal loggers or poachers. Don’t worry, a theft-detection system installed just in case the device is somehow located and moved.
But how does this souped-up smartphone tell the difference between a tree naturally falling in the woods and one being chopped down by a bunch of guys with a saw—or the difference between animals being hunted by each other or by humans out to profit from their hides or tusks?
The device’s open-source software API transmits compressed audio picked up by the phone to a cloud server, where it’s immediately analyzed. Within seconds the server can determine whether the sound that’s being picked up is a chainsaw, gunshots from poachers, or noises from animals in distress. The system then immediately sends a text alert to local law enforcement officers who can quickly get to the scene and put a stop to illegal activities.
In 2013 the startup successfully piloted its eavesdropping mobile phones in Western Sumatra. Now to avoid the bureaucracy of government grants, they’ve turned to Kickstarter and teamed up with the Zoological Society of London to quickly expand the project in the forests of Brazil and Africa. Rainforest Connection writes on their Kickstarter page that they hope to raise $100,000 over the next month to be able to “build enough devices to protect at least 200-300 kilometers of forest.”
Rainforest Connection estimates that each device is able to protect “enough trees from logging to prevent 15,000 metric-tons of carbon dioxide from being released into the atmosphere,”—the equivalent of 3,000 fewer cars on the road. Each one can also one square mile of land. That’s “an area of forest so large that it is home to over 1,000 different species of plants and animals.”
If the project exceeds its funding goals, the startup says it will be able to add an app that will let the average person listen to the ambient noise of the rainforest in real time. And, of course, it’ll be able to get more devices out there to save our trees and wild creatures from illegal logging and poaching.
Related stories on TakePart:
• $23 Million for Rhinos: Howard Buffett’s Mega Gift to Help Stop Poaching
• Bye-Bye, Styrofoam: Washington, D.C., Finally Bans Plastic Take-Out Containers
• $200 Million Sham: Recycling Fraud Rampant in California
Original article from TakePart
