Monitors the rainforest on Facebook - forskning.no

Of the world’s roughly seven billion people have access to 6 billion mobile phone.

In a world where it is inserted into substantial resources to monitor the rainforest to prevent deforestation, open cell proliferation of new ways to do the job.

mobile and Facebook allows local forces can be drawn.

Not only does it monitor better, it also helps to make local people more aware of what is going on.

mobile phone spreads in the neighborhood, everyone can help to monitor the rainforest. But it is difficult to collect and share data. (Photo: CIFOR)

Kaffee birthplace

place where Arabica coffee came from – Kafa reserve of Ethiopia – have forest guards its own Facebook group where they can share information quickly.

German nature conservation associated Naturschutzbund and researchers from Wageningen University in the Netherlands provided on the site via satellite.

Martin Herold is keen to exploit the media already in use – right now it’s Facebook. (Photo: Wageningen UR)

– But from space, we only see that something is happening. We do not know what is happening, or why, says Professor Martin Herold in Wageningen.

This sends the message to the 30 forest guards in the area, using the private Facebook group theirs.

– Internet is barely in place in the area. Right now it is Facebook all use regularly, and not email. Therefore, it is easier to keep people updated on Facebook. In the future it may be something else, but this is what works now, says Herold.

rangers find a change on the ground, they use Facebook to alert both researchers and colleagues.

– They look whether it is a change and why, the information that we can not see with the help of the satellite, he said.

Faster Data

Niki Mardas in rainforest think tank Global Canopy Programme believe that something as simple as a mobile phone is going to play an important role in Redd + – a UN-backed program to reduce deforestation and keep greenhouse gas emissions as low as possible.

– Local communities are the best to collect data, and a cell phone is a tool that can be used to share data, location and photos. With this technology, the information comes up much faster, he said.

Linking information

Mardas believe that data as the locals collect is as reliable as data from the experts. The challenge is to be able to share them.

– We have seen in the projects we work with, that much is done to standardize and improve the tools, but shared little information, says Niki Mardas.

In an article that Martin Herold has published along with other researchers from Wageningen University and CIFOR, Center for International Forestry Research, he draws up guidelines on how local and national data can be shared.

– yet no one has started to some extent, but many are beginning to develop solutions, he said.

References:

Arun Kumar Pratihast, Martin Herold, Veronique De Sy, Daniel Murdiyarso, Margaret Skutsch: Linking community-based and national REDD + monitoring: a review of the potential, Carbon Management 2013, doi: 10.4155 / cmt.12.75. Summary

Alejandra Larrazabal, Michael K McCall, Tuyeni H Mwampamba, Margaret Skutsch: The role of community carbon monitoring for REDD +: a review of experiences, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability , 2012, doi: 10.1016 / j.cosust.2012.10.008. Summary