Deforestation has serious consequences for the country as it affects the environment and reduces the amount of wood used in industry.

In order to prevent these illegalities, the “DAAC digital” team, which creates and implements innovative solutions for the digital support of the information development of society, state and business, went to the Ivancea Forest, which is part of the Orhei National Park, and installed special equipment to monitor violations.

The system – called RFCx – is based on real-time detection of logging sounds, specifically the sound produced by a chainsaw (in this case). Devices installed in trees, called digital guardians, constantly listen to sounds in the forest and transmit them via the mobile phone network to a cloud-based platform. The collected sounds are analysed, processed and compared with a database of sounds. The central system issues an alert whenever it identifies a chainsaw sound. The alert contains the detected sound and the GPS coordinates of the device in the forest (of the digital guardian) that reported the sound. The alert is sent in the form of a message (sms) to the responsible persons (foresters) and/or to a zonal or national monitoring centre. They can listen to the recorded sound in real time, see the location of the alert on a map and decide whether it is a legal or illegal operation. The devices are installed in the upper section of some trees and are equipped with their own solar panels that provide them with power.

How the system works, Oleg Chirilenco, a senior engineer of the Information Security Department, told Noi.md:

“The system consists of local warning lights, which has a range of about 1.6 km, diameter 3.2 km. They are installed on treetops in order to catch, to capture all the sounds, which are charged. We’re talking here about chainsaw sounds, tree felling equipment and so on. It captures them, sends them to the cloud, they are analysed through artificial intelligence. Respectively, at the same time, on the computer or on the phone it is possible to monitor in real time the activities and sounds, which happen in the range of the warning device. Every 2-3 minutes, you can detect where the felling is taking place, the coordinates, the route is shown, a critical event in this or that area is reported to the person in charge, with the coordinates that there are tree felling. The responsible persons analyse, is such felling allowed or is such felling not allowed. Respectively, they can decide, are they legal or illegal.”

The engineer explained what, in his opinion, is the cause of the increase in illegal logging in Moldovan forests and why this monitoring system would really have an effective impact on this problem:

“After the last few years, with the pandemic, with the price of gas, electricity, lack of energy resources, the Republic of Moldova has collapsed very badly, i.e. tree felling cannot be monitored under the pretext of illegal felling, there is illegal felling, illegal deforestation throughout the Republic of Moldova. From North to South, such felling has been detected in large numbers and cannot be adjusted to real time. When they are detected, it is either too late or the trees are no longer in the forest. However, the given system allows for 2-3 minutes real time monitoring. A person sits in front of the monitor, he can also analyze, but also receives the coordinates, where to cut. Thus, it is an element of protection and prevention of illegal felling. It will be a very useful system for the Republic of Moldova.”

Please note that during the year 2022 in the forest fund of the Republic of Moldova by the control bodies have been detected and documented illegal logging in the volume of 2400 m3 of timber.

Based on this statistic, the implementation of the RFCx system by “DAAC digital” in several forests in the country would allow solving this serious problem of deforestation.

The Contravention Code provides for fines of up to 1 500 lei for individuals who illegally cut down trees and up to 15 000 lei for legal entities. At the same time, those found guilty are required by law to pay for environmental damage, and criminal proceedings are brought if particularly large amounts are cut down.

Source:

NOI.MD