What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN
-
0:20 - 0:22(Forest noises)
-
0:22 - 0:25In the summer of 2011,
as a tourist, -
0:26 - 0:29I visited the rainforests of Borneo
for the very first time, -
0:30 - 0:32and as you might imagine,
-
0:32 - 0:36it was the overwhelming sounds
of the forest that struck me the most. -
0:37 - 0:40There's this constant cacophony of noise.
-
0:40 - 0:42Some things actually do stick out.
-
0:42 - 0:47For example, this here is a big bird,
a rhinoceros hornbill. -
0:48 - 0:51This buzzing is a cicada.
-
0:52 - 0:56(Forest sounds)
-
1:03 - 1:05This is a family of gibbons.
-
1:05 - 1:09It's actually singing to each other
over a great distance. -
1:09 - 1:13The place where this was recorded
was in fact a gibbon reserve, -
1:13 - 1:15which is why you can hear so many of them,
-
1:15 - 1:18but in fact the most important noise
-
1:18 - 1:20that was coming out
of the forest that time -
1:20 - 1:22was one that I didn't notice,
-
1:22 - 1:25and in fact nobody there
had actually noticed it. -
1:26 - 1:28So, as I said, this was a gibbon reserve.
-
1:28 - 1:32They spend most of their time
rehabilitating gibbons, -
1:32 - 1:35these cute apes that you also just heard
a few minutes ago. -
1:37 - 1:39But in fact, what I didn't realize
when I got there, -
1:39 - 1:42was that they also have
to spend a lot of their time -
1:42 - 1:45protecting their area from illegal logging
that takes place on the side. -
1:45 - 1:47And so if we take the sound of the forest
-
1:47 - 1:50and we actually turn down the gibbons,
the insects, and the rest, -
1:50 - 1:52as you're hearing now,
-
1:52 - 1:55in the background, the entire time,
in recordings you heard, -
1:55 - 1:58was the sound of a chainsaw
at great distance. -
2:00 - 2:04And in fact, as I said,
these guards were there - -
2:04 - 2:09They had three full-time guards
who were posted around this sanctuary -
2:09 - 2:12whose job was in fact
to guard against illegal logging, -
2:13 - 2:17and one day, we went walking,
again as tourists, out into the forest, -
2:17 - 2:19and within five minutes' walk,
-
2:19 - 2:22we stumbled upon somebody
who was just sawing a tree down, -
2:22 - 2:26five minutes' walk, a few hundred meters
from the ranger station. -
2:27 - 2:29They hadn't been able
to hear the chainsaws, -
2:29 - 2:32because as you heard,
the forest is very, very loud. -
2:33 - 2:38It struck me as quite unacceptable
that in this modern time, -
2:38 - 2:42just a few hundred meters away
from a ranger station in a sanctuary, -
2:43 - 2:47that in fact nobody could hear it when
someone who has a chainsaw gets fired up. -
2:47 - 2:50It sounds impossible,
but in fact, it was quite true. -
2:50 - 2:53However, I did want to set out
and try and find a way -
2:53 - 2:56to work on helping them, because again,
they were there, -
2:56 - 2:58they wanted to protect the reserve.
-
2:58 - 3:01It was just a matter of being able
to hear the chainsaws. -
3:01 - 3:03So how do we stop illegal logging?
-
3:03 - 3:06It's really tempting, as an engineer,
always to come up with a high-tech, -
3:06 - 3:08super-crazy high-tech solution -
-
3:08 - 3:12I'm from San Francisco,
that's what we like to do there - -
3:12 - 3:14but in fact, you're in the rainforest.
-
3:14 - 3:17It has to be simple,
it has to be scalable, -
3:17 - 3:20and so what we also noticed
while were there was that -
3:20 - 3:23everything we needed was already there.
-
3:24 - 3:27We could build a system
that would allow us to stop this -
3:27 - 3:29using what's already there.
-
3:32 - 3:35So, in fact, who was there?
What was already in the forest? -
3:35 - 3:36Well, we had people.
-
3:36 - 3:39We had this group there that was
dedicated, three full-time guards, -
3:39 - 3:41dedicated to go and stop it,
-
3:41 - 3:44but they just needed to know
what was happening out in the forest. -
3:45 - 3:48In fact, the real surprise,
this is the big one, -
3:48 - 3:50was that there was connectivity
out in the forest. -
3:50 - 3:53There was cell phone service
way out in the middle of nowhere. -
3:53 - 3:56We're talking hundreds of kilometers
from the nearest road, -
3:56 - 3:59there's certainly no electricity,
but they had very good cell phone service, -
3:59 - 4:02these people in the towns
were on Facebook all the time, -
4:02 - 4:04they're surfing the web on their phones,
-
4:04 - 4:06and in fact they just
charge their phones once a day. -
4:06 - 4:09And this sort of got me thinking
that in fact it would be possible -
4:09 - 4:11to use the sounds of the forest,
-
4:11 - 4:14pick up the sounds
of chainsaws programmatically, -
4:14 - 4:16because people can't hear them,
-
4:16 - 4:17and send an alert.
-
4:17 - 4:20But you have to have a device
to go up in the trees. -
4:20 - 4:23So if we can use some device
to listen to the sounds of the forest, -
4:23 - 4:26connect to the cell phone
network that's there, -
4:26 - 4:28and send an alert to people on the ground,
-
4:28 - 4:31perhaps we could have a solution
to this issue for them. -
4:32 - 4:35But let's take a moment
to talk about saving the rainforest, -
4:35 - 4:39because it's something that we've
definitely all heard about forever. -
4:39 - 4:41People in my generation
have heard about saving the rainforest -
4:41 - 4:43since we were kids,
-
4:43 - 4:46and it seems that the message
has never changed: -
4:46 - 4:48We've got to save the rainforest,
it's super urgent, -
4:48 - 4:51this many football fields
have been destroyed yesterday. -
4:51 - 4:54and yet here we are today,
about half of the rainforest remains, -
4:54 - 4:58and we have potentially more urgent
problems like climate change. -
4:58 - 5:04But in fact, this is the little-known fact
that I didn't realize at the time: -
5:04 - 5:07Deforestation accounts
for more greenhouse gas -
5:07 - 5:11than all of the world's planes,
trains, cars, trucks and ships combined. -
5:11 - 5:14It's the second highest contributor
to climate change. -
5:14 - 5:16I was pretty amazed by that.
-
5:16 - 5:18Also, according to Interpol,
-
5:18 - 5:22as much as 90 percent of the logging
that takes place in the rainforest -
5:22 - 5:26is illegal logging,
like the illegal logging that we saw. -
5:26 - 5:30So if we can help people in the forest
enforce the rules that are there, -
5:30 - 5:33in fact, there's a mandate to do so,
because it is illegal, -
5:33 - 5:37then in fact we could eat heavily
into this 17 percent -
5:37 - 5:40and potentially have a major impact
in the short term. -
5:40 - 5:44It might just be the cheapest,
fastest way to fight climate change - -
5:45 - 5:47would be to stop illegal logging.
-
5:48 - 5:50And so here's the system that we imagine.
-
5:50 - 5:51It looks super high tech.
-
5:51 - 5:54The moment a sound of a chainsaw
is heard in the forest, -
5:54 - 5:56the device picks up the sound
of the chainsaw, -
5:56 - 6:00it sends an alert through the standard
GSM network that's already there -
6:00 - 6:02to a ranger in the field
-
6:02 - 6:05who can in fact show up in real time
and stop the logging. -
6:05 - 6:09It's no more about going out
and finding a tree that's been cut. -
6:09 - 6:11It's not about seeing
a tree from a satellite -
6:11 - 6:13in an area that's been clear cut,
-
6:13 - 6:15it's about real-time intervention.
-
6:15 - 6:18So I said it was the cheapest
and fastest way to do it, -
6:18 - 6:21but in fact, actually, as you saw,
they weren't able to do it, -
6:21 - 6:23so it may not be so cheap and fast.
-
6:23 - 6:26But if the devices in the trees
were actually cell phones, -
6:26 - 6:27it could be pretty cheap.
-
6:27 - 6:31Cell phones are thrown away
by the hundreds of millions every year, -
6:31 - 6:34hundreds of millions in the U.S. alone,
-
6:34 - 6:37not counting the rest of the world,
which of course we should do, -
6:37 - 6:39but in fact, cell phones are great.
-
6:39 - 6:41They're full of sensors.
-
6:41 - 6:43They can listen
to the sounds of the forest. -
6:43 - 6:47And because you guys probably
each have hundreds of apps on your phones -
6:47 - 6:50so you know which is the most popular
platform out there. -
6:50 - 6:51We do have to protect them.
-
6:51 - 6:53We have to put them in this box
that you see here, -
6:53 - 6:55and we do have to power them.
-
6:55 - 6:57Powering them is one of the greater
engineering challenges -
6:57 - 6:59that we had to deal with,
-
6:59 - 7:01because powering a cell phone
under a tree canopy, -
7:01 - 7:03any sort of solar power
under a tree canopy, -
7:03 - 7:06was an as-yet-unsolved problem,
-
7:06 - 7:09and that's this unique
solar panel design that you see here, -
7:09 - 7:14which in fact is built also from recycled
byproducts of an industrial process. -
7:15 - 7:17These are strips that are cut down.
-
7:18 - 7:20So this is me putting it all together
-
7:20 - 7:24in my parents' garage, actually.
-
7:24 - 7:26Thanks very much to them
for allowing me to do that. -
7:28 - 7:32As you can see,
this is a device up in a tree. -
7:34 - 7:36And this is a device on me.
-
7:41 - 7:44But of course you have to climb a tree
to get there. -
7:44 - 7:47What you can see from here, perhaps,
is that they are pretty well obscured -
7:47 - 7:50up in the tree canopy at a distance.
-
7:50 - 7:53That's important, because although
they are able to hear chainsaw noises -
7:53 - 7:56up to a kilometer in the distance,
which is pretty big, -
7:56 - 7:58allowing them to cover
about three square kilometers, -
7:58 - 8:00they should be well hidden,
-
8:00 - 8:04because if someone were to take them,
it would make the area unprotected. -
8:04 - 8:06So we had to test it, right,
it's a great idea, -
8:06 - 8:09you saw that fancy infographic,
but does it actually work? -
8:10 - 8:12Well, to test it,
we took it back to Indonesia, -
8:12 - 8:15not the same place, but another place,
-
8:15 - 8:16to another gibbon reserve
-
8:16 - 8:20that was threatened daily
by illegal logging. -
8:20 - 8:24In fact, we installed it in the trees,
you see up here... -
8:25 - 8:29On the very second day
that we installed it, -
8:29 - 8:31it picked up illegal chainsaw noises.
-
8:32 - 8:34We were able to get a real-time alert.
-
8:34 - 8:35I got an email on my phone.
-
8:35 - 8:37Actually, we had just climbed the tree.
-
8:37 - 8:39Everyone had just gotten back down.
-
8:39 - 8:41All these guys are smoking cigarettes,
-
8:41 - 8:44and then I get an email,
and they all quiet down, -
8:44 - 8:46and in fact you can hear the chainsaw
-
8:46 - 8:48really, really faint in the background,
-
8:48 - 8:50but no one had noticed it
until that moment. -
8:50 - 8:53And so then we took off
to actually stop these loggers. -
8:53 - 8:55I was pretty nervous.
-
8:55 - 8:59This is the moment where we've actually
arrived close to where the loggers are. -
8:59 - 9:02This is the moment where you can see
where I'm actually regretting -
9:02 - 9:05perhaps the entire endeavor.
-
9:05 - 9:07I'm not really sure what's
on the other side of this hill. -
9:07 - 9:09That guy's much braver than I am.
-
9:09 - 9:12But he went, so I had to go, walking up,
-
9:13 - 9:15and in fact, he made it over the hill,
-
9:15 - 9:19and interrupted the loggers in the act.
-
9:20 - 9:22For them, it was such a surprise -
-
9:22 - 9:24they had never, ever
been interrupted before - -
9:24 - 9:26that it was such an impressive
event for them, -
9:26 - 9:29that we've heard from our partners
they have not been back since, -
9:29 - 9:31to this one area to go logging there.
-
9:31 - 9:33They were, in fact, great guys.
-
9:33 - 9:35They showed us how
the entire operation works, -
9:35 - 9:37and what they really convinced us
on the spot was that -
9:37 - 9:40if you can show up
in real time and stop people, -
9:40 - 9:43it's enough of a deterrent
they won't come back. -
9:45 - 9:46So --
-
9:46 - 9:48Thank you. (Applause)
-
9:56 - 9:59Word of this spread, possibly
because we told a lot of people, -
9:59 - 10:02and in fact, then some really
amazing stuff started to happen. -
10:02 - 10:06People from around the world
started to send us emails, phone calls. -
10:06 - 10:08They said that they could use
this system, too. -
10:08 - 10:12As you can see, it was clearly built
for this one, isolated instance -
10:12 - 10:14in the forest, that I experienced.
-
10:14 - 10:17What we saw was that people
throughout Asia, -
10:17 - 10:19people throughout Africa,
throughout South America, -
10:19 - 10:21they told us that they could use it too,
-
10:21 - 10:23and what's most important,
-
10:23 - 10:26what we'd found that
we thought might be exceptional, -
10:26 - 10:28in the forest there was
pretty good cell phone service. -
10:28 - 10:30That was not exceptional, we were told,
-
10:30 - 10:34we were told that in many areas
there is very good cell phone service, -
10:34 - 10:38and that particularly is on the periphery
of the forests that are most under threat. -
10:38 - 10:40And then something
really amazing happened, -
10:40 - 10:43which was that people started sending us
their own old cell phones. -
10:43 - 10:45So in fact what we have now is a system
-
10:45 - 10:48where we can use people on the ground,
people who are already there, -
10:48 - 10:51who can both improve
and use the existing connectivity, -
10:51 - 10:54and we're using old cell phones
that are being sent to us -
10:54 - 10:55by people from around the world
-
10:55 - 10:59that want their phones to be doing
something else in their afterlife, -
10:59 - 10:59so to speak.
-
10:59 - 11:02And if the rest of the device
can be completely recycled, -
11:02 - 11:05then we believe it's an entirely
upcycled device. -
11:06 - 11:10So again, this didn't come
because of any sort of high-tech solution, -
11:10 - 11:14despite - as an engineer
what I was really driven to do. -
11:16 - 11:18It just came from using
what's already there, -
11:18 - 11:21and I'm thoroughly convinced
that if it's not phones, -
11:21 - 11:23that there's always
going to be enough there -
11:23 - 11:25that you can build similar solutions
-
11:25 - 11:27that can be very effective
in new contexts. -
11:27 - 11:28Thank you very much.
-
11:28 - 11:31(Applause)
- Title:
- What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN
- Description:
-
This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences. The sounds of the rainforest include: the chirps of birds, the buzz of cicadas, the banter of gibbons. But in the background is the almost-always present sound of a chainsaw, from illegal loggers. Engineer Topher White shares a simple, scalable way to stop this brutal deforestation — that starts with your old cell phone.
- Video Language:
- English
- Team:
- closed TED
- Project:
- TEDxTalks
- Duration:
- 11:39
TED Translators admin approved English subtitles for What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN | ||
Ivana Korom accepted English subtitles for What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN | ||
Ivana Korom edited English subtitles for What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN | ||
TED Translators admin edited English subtitles for What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN | ||
TED Translators admin edited English subtitles for What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN | ||
TED Translators admin edited English subtitles for What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone | Topher White | TEDxCERN |