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Tech in Conservation Part 1: Reforestation

By: Frida Ruiz When imagining the remote, robust tropical dry forests of the Azuero Peninsula, technology doesn’t come to mind. Many people’s impressions of technology involve complicated machinery and fragile parts, not compatible with the rough terrain of the Panamanian rainforest. While integrating both concepts may seem counterintuitive, technology can serve to aid conservation efforts in helping drive up scalability and fill in gaps of inefficiencies. Hence, this two part series will educate those curious on the various technologies and tools involved in conservation.


The first part will focus on reforestation, which involves technology from the planning to the execution phases. It’s important to know that while reforestation mainly consists of planting trees, reforestation is only part of the larger picture of ecological restoration. Restoration brings back ecosystems and the biodiversity of the prior species populations. Developed forests attract more native pollinators, which aid the surrounding agricultural land. With more trees with stronger roots and organic matter, the soil will regain more nutrients, encouraging better nutrient cycling and reduction of soil erosion. The abundance of trees also helps with water retention and promotes more rainfall. In order to ensure the ecological benefits of reforestation, it’s necessary to have a deep understanding of the species of trees, quantities of said species, layout of the reforestation plan, and post monitoring plan.


Prior to the reforestation season, consisting of the months between September and May, the parcel is studied and a layout is created for the quantity and types of plants needed for each reach subregion. Meanwhile, the seeds are collected by local microproducers, who run seed nurseries to grow the seeds. During the reforestation season, the saplings and fertilizer are collected and transported to the parcel where eventually holes are made to plant the saplings. After planting, the team fertilizes and does initial monitoring, where the plant is located, identified, and photographed. On average, the parcel is monitored and maintained for 5 years, until the parcel is resistant enough to partake in passive regeneration.


With this in mind, the reforestation process entails many essential details that with more efficiency and scalability, can help create a greater impact. Hence, the following section will describe some of the technical tools used to assist said process.


  1. Handheld auger diggers



An auger digger consists of a spiral drill bit, where the tip (known as the feed screw) breaks up soil while the twist pulls up loose soil. This serves as an efficient way to create holes because of its ability to dig while ensuring the dug out soil is out of the hole. Unlike industrial sized augers, handheld augers can be powered by a battery, making them more lightweight and able to be used at faster speeds. Unfortunately, some issues do arise when using augers especially in rocky and swampy environments where the terrain could damage the auger drill bit. For those terrain types, more manual digging devices are more helpful. However, auger diggers do generally enable their users to make more holes, which allows more trees to be planted at a given day. 

  

2. DIJ Phantom Drone



An unmanned aerial vehicle, also known as a drone, can take images and videos of vast regions at incredible heights (more than 400 feet). Aside from being able to get a good look at landscape, drones are also able to render images and track the geographical location of said images. The images can then be uploaded onto a map imaging software like Google Earth, where the geographical points can be turned into a realistic simulation of the parcel. This information allows ecologists and reforestation teams to have an accurate estimate of the amount of plants needed and the topographical conditions (such as steepness, approximately to shady regions, distance from a water source) to know where to plant the different plant species. 

While drones are useful for the planning phases, their camera specifications are not able to get high resolution images of small saplings, making them unable to be used for the first 5 years of monitoring. Therefore, other methods are currently used to monitor the plants. 


3. ArcGIS Survey 123  & Submetric GPS system



More generally, geographic information systems (GIS) is a computer system that tracks and displays geographical information corresponding to a specific location. With simple information like longitude, latitude, and altitude, the system is able to create accurate customizable maps of the region to assess specific variables. Esri, one of the largest GIS software developers, created ArcGIS Survey 123, which serves as a data collection tool that tracks the location and other relevant information of each entry. In the case of reforestation, it can be used to monitor the plants by taking pictures of the plants and manually inputting information like species type. This information can then showcase how many plants are monitored at each site and the breakdown of the health of each species. In order to ensure an accurate location, the monitoring team carries a GPS (global positioning system) device, which allows the device’s antenna to be pinpointed by the satellites which identify the plant’s location. While this method allows for a close look at the plants, it is rather time consuming and requires a lot of manual input.

Despite the current setbacks in each of these technological tools, there are ongoing developments that could address some of the issues and further increase their efficiencies. Even though these tools help conservation efforts, it’s important to acknowledge their primary role should be supporting and empowering human efforts as nothing can replace human intuition.


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