Monday, August 11, 2014

Recovered mobiles save rainforest – New Technology


     Equipped with solar panels placed mobiles high up in the trees. Where they listen for the sound of chainsaws. Photovoltaics provide mobile energy. Photo: Rainforest Connection
     

Old smartphones may get a new life as the guardian of the rainforest. The technology has been successfully tested in Sumatra.

Smart phones that are no longer form the basis of a network that can protect the rainforest against illegal logging. Equipped with solar panels placed the phones high up in the trees. Where they listen for the sound of chainsaws, which is captured as soon as they are closer than one kilometer. When the sound is recorded, an alert via GSM network, and guards set off against the place. According to the website Smithsonian.com handle every mobile monitoring the 3.14 square kilometers of forest.

behind the innovation, the American physicist and engineer Kristopher White , who formed the nonprofit organization Rainforest Connection around the technology.

The mobile-based system was tested with great success last year in Sumatra, where illegal logging of rainforest is a major problem.

After a campaign on Kickstarter, the organization has now received 1.2 million kronor. The money will be used to test the technology in large scale and partly in the Amazon, and in Africa. The tests are done in collaboration with the British Zoological Society of London.

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