Protecting the Choco Ecosystem of the Mashpi Reserve
Ecuador
Overview
In 2019, Rainforest Connection has successfully installed ten (10) Guardians within the tree canopy at strategic places in the Mashpi Reserve.
Partners
Conservation International
Objectives
Improve monitoring and protection of the Mashpi Reserve Choco Ecosystem, Ecuador through the deployment of autonomous acoustic monitoring technology. This should serve to support and improve collaboration amongst local communities, empower local partners, improve protection and the safety of law enforcement/rangers.
Implementation
Once on the ground, the installation team spent significant time understanding the area, the local challenges and terrain, and the Guardians were placed at location which are difficult to monitor and patrol.
RFCx team trained the rangers on how to set up a repeater and as a result, the rangers have cellphone service at the ranger lodge.
In order to accommodate for low sunlight through the tree canopy and during the rainy season where sunlight is scarce, RFCx redesigned the layout and positioning of the solar panels to allow for maximum sun exposure.
Impact
Outcomes:
Successfully installed ten (10) Guardians within the tree canopy at strategic places in the Mashpi Reserve.
Through the installation of the Guardians, the Mashpi Reserve team is able to support the social mission of the Metropolitan Touring of protecting the surrounding areas of the Mashpi Lodge and helping conserve a substantial portion of the remaining Choco bio-region in Ecuador after it experienced years of deforestation.
The Guardians have been extremely well-received by the on ground partners to create deterrence to stop illegal logging.
11651 hours or data have been collected and added to the audio ark.
Challenges:
The rugged terrain (combination of hills and valleys) challenged the quality of network service, which created obstacles for the installation of the Guardians.
The terrain and the topography posed a considerable challenge as it was physically demanding for the team to get to the installation sites. Each day required several hours of long hikes in rainy weather which made the mud very slippery and dangerous. This restricted the team from installing more than one Guardian in a day.
It was also difficult to find the right trees for the Guardian installation due to the mountainous topography, the trees seemed to be big and tall however it was mostly moss which was damp and dewy. In some cases, the branches would break on the way up the tree.
