Description

Rainforest Connection (RFCx) is a San Francisco-based nonprofit organization founded by Topher White in 2011 that transforms recycled Android cell phones into autonomous, solar-powered listening devices that monitor and pinpoint chainsaw activity resulting from illegal deforestation from a considerable distance. All of the hardware and software used are open-source, with the exception of the phone’s internal components.

The devices continuously record and screen ambient sounds in the rainforest, sounding an alarm to relevant authorities when the ambient sounds match the sound-signature of a chainsaw or a motorcycle. Alerts are sent using existing cell networks, which are present in many remote areas, and the phones are powered using solar energy. Each phone covers an area with a radius of roughly one square mile. A beta test was conducted in western Sumatra’s Air Tarusan reserve using 15 phones to cover 96 square miles of old-growth forest. (http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/10/rainforest-connection-cell-phone-deforestation_n_3416288.html) Since then, Rainforest Connection has installed phones in Brazil (over 30 phones), and has plans to install phones in Ecuador, Borneo, Indonesia, and other countries in Latin America. (http://www.techinsider.io/how-cell-phones-could-help-save-the-rainforest-2016-3)

The reconfigured cellphones are placed high in the tree canopy, making them virtually invisible. Rainforest Connection hardware is the first real-time logging detection system that can locate deforestation as it occurs. Information on illegal deforestation acquired by the organization is free and open to anyone in the world. The real-time nature of the technology provides the potential for a quick response, and the sounds broadcast by the phone will soon be available for anyone to listen to through a mobile app to be released shortly.