Al Jazeera: Saving Ecuador’s Cerro Blanco

In this video, follow Al Jazeera’s Juliana Schatz journey into Ecuador’s port city of Guayaquil to explore the ways locals and conservationists are protecting the Cerro Blanco reserve, one of the last remaining dry forests in the country. Cerro Blanco is threatened by a host of natural causes and human activity, including an expanding city that means people who cannot afford to live centrally are edging closer to the forest. Schatz talks to the reserve’s chief ranger, Eleutario de la Cruz, about the varying threats to the forest and engineer Topher White, who has developed a surveillance system made from recycled technology that could help protect the forest and its endangered wildlife. Consisting of mobile phones, external microphones and recycled solar panel shards, the system allows rangers to listen in on the forest without having to take on the near impossible task of walking around and patrolling the entire vicinity.

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