Protecting the Matawai Rainforest & Cultural Heritage in Suriname
Suriname
Overview
The installation of the RFCx Guardians will serve to support and improve collaboration amongst local communities, empower local partners and improve protection and the safety of law enforcement/rangers. The end goal is to create a comprehensive biodiversity monitoring program that allows the local partner to measure progress of wildlife restoration and recovery through principles of adaptive management and to serve as a testing ground for conservation technology that can be applied globally.
The community itself admitted they did not have the resources to manage nor patrol their vast forests regularly and so need a system of real time alerts which will allow them to react to trespassers and illegal loggers which they suspect are extracting from their lands.
Partners
Conservation International Suriname (CI)
‘Maroon’ Matawai Community
Objectives
Improve monitoring and protection of the Matawai site, Suriname through the deployment of autonomous acoustic monitoring technology.
Serve to support and improve collaboration amongst local communities, empower local partners and improve protection and the safety of law enforcement/rangers.
Create a comprehensive biodiversity monitoring program that allows the local partner to measure progress of wildlife restoration and recovery through principles of adaptive management.
Serve as testing ground for conservation technology that can be applied globally.
Directly monitor the buffer zone for the Central Suriname Nature Reserve by sustainably managing 97,000 ha of forest.
Store captured sounds in an accessible cloud-based archive for immediate and future analysis, enabling in-depth understanding of how illegal activities and species of interest are changing temporally and spatially.
Develop an “Audio Ark” of forest sounds for biodiversity monitoring
Use RFCx Platform to run analysis on data utilizing AI (convolutional neural network) techniques.
Capture, record and alert for target sounds including Chainsaws, Motorcycles, Trucks, Gunshots,
Hounds, Human Presence (in development) for illegal activities
Train the Local Partners to use the RFCx Ranger Application and Dashboard system in order to review incoming alerts and provide species annotations used to create the AI models.
Capture and archive forensic evidence of illegal activity for prosecution.
Implementation
Installed 2 out of 8 planned guardians in 2020 before the team had to evacuate due to strict COVID-19 regulations and lockdown, installed 11 guardians in 2022, bringing the total no. of guardians installed to 13
Decided to install guardians on the boundary of the buffer zone between Central Suriname Reserve and the Matawai Community due to lack of sufficient cell phone towers
Conducted a primary survey with the local partners to map and establish key nodal points for the first step of the expansion project due to the current field restrictions
Fifty (50) RFCx Edge offline devices that will be spread across the landscape of interest by the local team and left to record data for one to two weeks. The RFCx team of expert conservation biologists will then remotely execute a study of species diversity and distribution.
In the second step, RFCx will deploy an expansion phase of twenty (20) real-time, permanent monitoring Guardian devices across the region to detect illegal activities and key species.
RFCx team of expert conservation biologists will train local partners and local scientists on how to use the system to extract insights.This training will also allow the users to utilize the real-time continuous monitoring listening stations to execute analyses and have access to data on call.
Impact
Impacts:
Installed around 13 Guardians in the buffer zone boundaries.
Built local capacity by training Irvin, a local, Surinamese tourist guide who traditionally conducts rock climbing and zip line tours. The RFCx field installation manager extensively trained Irvin on the installation of the RFCx.
Guardians which resulted in Irvin being able to install the Guardian independently.
Installed Guardians for providing warning if mining happens out of the concession and into prohibited areas.
Installed the Guardian in an area where logging should not be present.
Challenges:
There was only one cell phone tower in the Matawi community which restricted the installations as the Matawai community territory is very large.
All activites were halted due to strict COVID-19 lockdowns.
Suriname experienced an extended rainy season that led to the National Coordinating Center for Disasters (NCCR), reports were received of flooding in several affected areas including the Matawai Community which further delayed planned fieldwork as the roads leading to the Matawai Community were completely inaccessible.
