ForestLink
Real-time Forest Monitoring: Empowering Communities, Preventing Illegalities, Protecting Forests
Since its creation, ForestLink has been successfully deployed as part of RFUK’s Real-Time Forest Monitoring (RTM) initiative in Cameroon, the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), Ghana and Peru. By engaging forest and indigenous peoples in the fight against illegal logging and deforestation, RTM seeks to strengthen local involvement in forest management.
ForestLink app helps catch illegal miners red-handed in Peru
Environmental police seized an estimated £1 million of illegal mining equipment during a raid near Barranco Chico, in Madre de Dios | Photo credit: FENAMAD Over the last two months, dozens of suspected illegal gold miners causing terrible environmental damage in the Peruvian Amazon were caught with the help of the ForestLink smartphone app developed by the Rainforest … Read more
Real-time technology helps stop illegal mining operation in the Peruvian Amazon
A map of the affected area in Madre de Dios region. An indigenous community in the Peruvian Amazon helped to catch illegal gold miners red-handed this month using a smartphone app developed by the Rainforest Foundation UK (RFUK), leading to the dramatic destruction of illegal mining equipment. The Masenawa community in Peru’s Madre de Dios … Read more
FORESTLINK: The Future of Rainforest Protection
This short film documents the early stages of the Rainforest Foundation UK’s real-time forest monitoring project in Central Africa and the Peruvian Amazon. RFUK works in the world’s two largest rainforests: the Congo Basin and the Amazon. Spread over billions of acres, these forests are under threat from illegal activities like logging and mining. These … Read more
Community-based Real-time Monitoring in the Congo Basin and Amazon rainforests
In 2015, Rainforest Foundation UK, in collaboration with Forêts et Développement Rural (FODER), successfully developed and tested a ground-breaking new system, ForestLink, a tool to enable communities anywhere in the world to capture and transmit accurately geo-referenced reports of forest illegalities to authorities and other stakeholders in real-time – even in areas where there is … Read more
ForestLink training wraps up in Abong-Mbang: Another rainforest community ready to protect their environment
Yesterday, the Rainforest Foundation UK team were in the forests near Abong-Mbang, Cameroon. We spoke to six members of one local community, including the chief, about the problems they’re facing in relation to the illegal exploitation of their forests. For them, the forest is their life, their livelihood. They simply can’t live without it. Many … Read more
ForestLink training continues: testing the technology in Abong-Mbang
On Monday, following the last day of ‘Training the Trainer’, the group travelled east to Abong-Mbang, where Forêts et Développement Rural (FODER) and two local NGOs have been training 12 community observers in our ForestLink technology. In the afternoon, the group split up into teams of two and three and ventured outdoors to test their new-found skills and technology. RFUK’s … Read more
Fighting illegal logging in Cameroon: Training the first ForestLink monitors
The Rainforest Foundation UK, in collaboration with its local partner in Cameroon, FODER, has successfully developed and tested its ForestLink system. This ground-breaking new system enables communities anywhere in the world to use satellite-linked smartphones to report illegal logging, environmental crimes and human rights abuses taking place in some of the most remote parts of the planet. … Read more
Official launch of community-based real-time forest monitoring project in Ghana
The Rainforest Foundation UK is excited to launch our first ever project in Ghana. On 27th and 29th of April 2016, our real-time forest monitoring (RTM) project was officially launched in the Nkawie and Goaso Forest Districts in Ghana, respectively. Representatives from government agencies, participating communities and civil society organisations gathered to learn more about … Read more
ForestLink – putting the power to save forests in local peoples’ hands
An audience at The Royal Institution (RI) in London on Wednesday heard how millions of ‘community forest monitors’ could be mobilised by a new system devised by RFUK that enables them to report illegal logging in real-time. The meeting heard from Georges-Thierry Handja, RFUK’s mapping coordinator,that the system had already been successfully tested in Cameroon and would … Read more