Padang (ANTARA) - Rainforest Connection cooperates with Google Artificial Intelligence and Indonesian Conservation Community (KKI) Warsi to install 12 Guardians who can monitor and detect illegal logging actions in forest areas in two districts in W Sumatra.
"The nine units were installed in Solok Selatan, and three units in Solok," said Conservation Community Program Manager Conservation Information Center (KKI Warsi) Rainal Daus in Padang on Tuesday.
He explained that the three devices installed in Solok Regency were in Sirukam with a distance of two kilometers each, and in Solok Selatan in three Nagari forest areas namely Pakan Rabaa Timur, Pakan Rabaa, and Pasir Talang Timur. Installation is carried out from 12 to 26 July 2019.
Installation of equipment in forest areas in these two districts is due to frequent logging, while forest patrol officers are very far from this location, so it is always too late to reach the location when illegal logging is reported.
He explained that the Guardian technology work system utilizes Tensor Flow which is mounted on a 30-meter-tall tree top that can be used to detect sounds in the forest such as animal sounds, chainsaws and send them to mobile applications.
"Thus the community around the forest can easily find out if there is illegal logging," he said.
So far there have been complaints from the public on how to have technology that can help to know more quickly if someone steals wood in the forest area.
"Following up on this complaint we invited Rainforest Connection, which is developing forest monitoring technology based on sound sensors and they agreed with Google Indonesia to install the device in W Sumatra, he said.
Head of Corporate Communications Google Indonesia Jason Tedjasukmana said the Tensor Flow is useful for capturing sound in the forest that is installed so that people no longer need to enter the forest to find out whether illegal logging has occurred, because they are monitored by cell phone from home.
Founder and CEO Rainforest Connection Topher Added an installed device that can capture sound as far as 1.5 kilometers. To be able to hear the sound of the device installed, the public can download the application called Rainforest Connection in Playstore.
Meanwhile, one of the members of the Solok Regency Forest Patrol Team in Hendrizal said that this tool would greatly help control the forest in the area, because from a distance it could monitor events in the forest through cell phone applications.
"This tool will certainly help alleviate our duty to protect the forest, because with a forest area of 5,140 hectares in Solok Selatan it is not possible to monitor it all, especially at the same time," he said. (*)
Rainforest Connection installs 12 Guardians to save West Sumatra forest
Rainforest Connection's Founder & CEO, Topher White shows the Guardian and solar panels that will be installed at the top of the tree at an altitude of about 30 meters in the Solok Selatan forest. (Antara Sumbar /Mutiara Ramadhani)
