Enhancing Forest Conservation in Sumatra
West Sumatra, Indonesia
The Problem
The project focused on using RFCx acoustic monitoring technology to monitor and protect the Mudiak Baduo Landscape, a biodiverse area facing threats from deforestation, illegal logging, and land-based concessions like oil palm and mining. The initiative aimed to provide real-time alerts to local Village Forest Guards (VFG) to enable quicker interventions, supplementing traditional, often ineffective, scheduled patrols.
Objectives
The primary objective of the pilot phase was to implement the RFCx Guardian system in the Mudiak Baduo Landscape to:
Establish effective, real-time monitoring of key strategic locations (hot-zones) in the four village forests.
Provide local partners (KKI Warsi and VFG) with the technology and initial training to detect and report illegal activities (cars, trucks, motorcycles, and chainsaws).
Start the process of building local capacity for using the system for interventions and incident reporting.
Implementation
Installation: A total of twelve RFCx Guardians were manufactured, assembled, and installed—three in each of the four village forests.
Mapping: The RFCx team worked closely with KKI Warsi and the VFGs for on-site hot-zone mapping to select strategic Guardian locations.
Equipment: RFCx handed over twenty new Huawei phones (including 12 Huawei Mate Pros) for VFG use of the Ranger Application and a DELL laptop to KKI Warsi for the Dashboard and Alert Management System.
Training: Extensive training was provided to VFGs on the features of the RFCx Ranger Mobile Application (real-time push alerts, GPS patrol mapping, incident reporting) and to KKI Warsi on the web-based Dashboard and tools (for report generation, alert review, and training the Artificial Intelligence model).
Technology Fine-tuning: The sensitivity of the Guardians was set to high to maximize monitoring range, necessitating a formal review and categorization process to filter false positive alerts and enhance the accuracy of the machine learning model.
Impact
Protection: The project successfully installed the Guardian network, aiding in the monitoring and protection of the four village forests, covering an area of 13,584 Ha.
Real-time Detection: The new system demonstrated its immediate value by capturing live chainsaw alerts during training and facilitating the documentation of a recently logged area by the KKI Warsi team, which was then filed as an incident report.
Data Archiving: The installed devices are currently collecting hundreds of hours of data monthly, with a total of 9,556 hours of data collected and added to the audio ark to date.
Community Support: The VFGs were highly engaged throughout the installation process, leading to a strong sense of ownership and accountability.
Institutional Buy-in: The data gathered has empowered KKI Warsi to prepare presentations for district police, Forest Management Units, and the Provincial Forest Agency to secure support for the real-time response process and for a broader deployment of the technology.
Public Awareness: The project received extensive media coverage facilitated by Google, Huawei, and the New York Times, with over 40 articles expected in total.
