"Nature Guardians" Deployed in Five New Countries: Protecting Nature and Endangered Animals

Huawei, RFCx, and a local organization working to end the poaching of Balkan Chamois in Greece's Northern Pindos National Park

Tropical rainforests are the "lungs of the planet", absorbing about 30% of the world's carbon dioxide. They are also home to more than half of animal and plant species in the world and are vital to maintaining biodiversity.

As the first line of defense, forest rangers are responsible for preventing fires and illegal logging, as well as protecting wildlife in the forests. However, their patrols are often not enough to safeguard the forests. By the time rangers find out about illegal logging and rush to intervene, the loggers may have already finished felling trees and escaped with the timber.

Huawei and RFCx are working together to use HUAWEI CLOUD AI to identify sounds of illegal logging through a solar-powered sound monitoring system deployed in the rainforest.

The "Nature Guardian" system collects sound data and uploads it to a cloud server. It can run 24/7 even in the extreme temperature, humidity, and rainfall conditions of a rainforest. Whenever it detects the sounds of illegal logging, such as chainsaws and trucks, it immediately sends the location to forest rangers so that they can quickly intervene.

Today, Guardians are no longer just used to detect sounds of logging in rainforests. In 2020, RFCx and Huawei worked together to apply the Guardians in new domains. In Greece, we used Guardians to monitor sounds of gunshots in protected areas to protect wild antelopes from poachers. In Ireland, Guardians are used to identify calls of whales and dolphins so that approaching ships can redirect their course to avoid disturbing or harming these marine species. In Chile, we use Guardians to prevent illegal poaching in Nahuelbuta National Park and to protect the endangered Darwin's foxes. In Palawan in the Philippines and Sarawak in Malaysia, Huawei is working with RFCx and local environmental protection departments to protect local tropical rainforests and monitor illegal logging in the rainforests in real time.

By the end of 2022, "Nature Guardians" were deployed in 37 protected areas in 15 different countries, helping local rangers and conservationists protect nature and biodiversity.