Green Inspiration is a series of articles developed by Local.mx to showcase the most relevant environmental projects. In collaboration with Rolex's Perpetual Planet initiative, our goal is to raise awareness, inspire new generations and encourage all good ideas that improve life on Mother Earth. Rolex is supporting inspiring organizations and individuals on a mission to make the planet perpetual. #PerpetualPlanet. For more information visit rolex.org.
There are times -storm, tremor, hail- when nature roars; on more discreet occasions, the whistling of the wind shakes the trees and blows dry leaves; a bird sings or an impossible fly buzzes at midnight. There is a world made of roots and water, of thunder and plumage that, in its own noisy or subtle, restless or immobile way, emits sounds that one must learn to listen to.
One man learned this in the most deforested forests on our planet. Topher White, an American engineer and 2019 Rolex Laureate of the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, realized that trees could sound the alarm to loggers, poachers and other threats. But they had to do so in their language. So he ruled out installing cameras and opted instead for the use of forest guardians: cell phones -recycledcell phones-that are solar-powered and equipped with highly sensitive microphones.
"The true essence of the forest is in its sounds," says White, and these "guardians of the forest" are its ears. They detect and transmit alarm signals, such as the noise of the chainsaw, which allows illegal logging to be stopped on the spot, but they also collect all the surrounding murmurs, which are made available to the scientific community for analysis.
Rainforest Connection, Topher White's NGO, has as its main objective the detection of illegal activities that most threaten the health of forests, and that information is analyzed with artificial intelligence and big data techniques. However, the entire archive of bird and other species sounds is a very valuable tool for monitoring the state of biodiversity in different tropical forests, mainly in Central America, Asia and the Amazon.
Watch the video of Topher White in Chocó, Ecuador, to learn more about his work and how it also impacts the communities surrounding the forests:
This project, amazingly simple in essence, provides an enormous complexity of data and, above all, an immediate benefit. It is actions like this, with tangible results and a sincere spirit, that need the most support to grow and perpetuate.
Listen up close, from anywhere
In nature, according to Topher White, "there is an information-packed exchange of sounds". And even in this city, where the gaze stops on concrete blocks, there are opportunities to listen and decipher what we hear.
In this spirit, Mexican artist Ariel Guzik creates works as singular as they are fascinating, capable of bringing us closer to the languages of nature (or distancing us for a moment from ourselves and our verbal urgency). Through the collective work of the Laboratorio de Investigación en Resonancia y Expresión de la Naturaleza, his work explores the sounds of cetaceans or plants, the cosmos or insects. The big and the small have (perhaps) their own codes and generate their own music, unusual, separated from the usual patterns, in which the rhythm is set by the world. It is an invitation to think about the balance of ecosystems that, like clockwork pieces, depend on each element being in its place for perfect functioning.
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Green Inspiration is a series of articles that fills us with excitement. Throughout the year, we will showcase the most relevant environmental projects that have been carried out around the globe under Rolex's Perpetual Planet initiative, and we will also tell the local stories of those facing enormous environmental challenges.
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