Rainforest Connection | Council for Inclusive Capitalism

Rainforest Connection (RFCx) is a non profit tech start-up committed to applying the most effective and timely technology to protect our planet’s precious, ancient forests and wildlife. Our approach is to use the most advanced techniques available to make the ultimate solution elegant and simple. We listen to the rainforest remotely, using commonplace mobile tech and existing telecommunications infrastructure, and transform these audio streams into a profound and automatic understanding of the forest soundscape, rooting out any threats. RFCx partners with local NGOs and indigenous tribes to deter incursions through real time threat detection and providing forensic evidence to enable governments to take action to prevent further incursions. RFCx plans to make this data available to academic researchers and government agencies to assist the fields of field ecology and conservation.

Purpose

Illegal deforestation is a gateway activity to clearing rainforests, one of the primary causes of climate change. According to the UN, up to 90% of logging in tropical rainforests is illegal.

The reason we start with a focus on stopping illegal logging is because, in case after case, we have seen first hand that if you can protect the trees, you end up protecting everything else.

The RFCx monitoring system gives our partners the opportunity to protect key rainforest areas and respond to real-time alerts, while sharing large amounts of ecosystem data that help negotiate increased protections in these areas. In some cases, protecting the perimeter of a rainforest can actually mean protecting everything behind it.

Saving rainforests is the key to saving our planet. We are dedicated to putting conservation technologies into the hands of committed partners on-the-ground.

Our goal at Rainforest Connection is to make sure poachers no longer have free reign over the world’s rainforests. To that end, we use the RFCx system to help our partners recognize patterns of activity related to poaching, including alerts for trucks, cars, and motorcycles being used by poachers in key protected areas. Halting poaching helps save animals, forests, and the larger world.

For the first time in history, we’re within a stone’s throw of creating the world’s most remarkable data set: A trove of life science and eco-data on a platform that lets scientists compare month over month, year over year changes to our planet’s most endangered ecosystems in order to protect their health. The bio-acoustic monitoring capabilities of our technology is enabling the creation of this “worldwide rainforest”. The information can be used for land management, policy changes, and allocation of limited resources for greater impact.

Topher White

CEO , Rainforest Connection

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