Providence will help investigate biodiversity./ Photo: UPC
The Diplomat. 28/12/2016
An international team of scientists from Brazil, Spain and Australia will jointly develop the most sophisticated remote monitoring system that has been implemented to date to investigate the loss of biodiversity in the Amazon rainforest.
In the high-tech Providence project, which began in mid-December, will participate the Bioacoustic Applications Laboratory (LAB) of the Polytechnic University of Catalonia (UPC), the Mamirauá Sustainable Development Institute, the Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM) , both from Brazil, and the Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO), Australia.
“Providence will revolutionize biodiversity monitoring by creating and installing a wireless network of sensors distributed throughout the Amazon, with autonomous nodes that constantly monitor wildlife under the cover of the rainforest” said UPC (who has been involved in the project with the support of The Sense of Silence Foundation, TSOSF).
The Polytechnic University of Catalonia participates in this project that will improve the study of tropical forests
The Gordon and Betty Moore Foundation, a philanthropic body created by Gordon Moore, founder of Intel, has donated 1.3 million euros to the project, according to the University and the Spain-Brazil Council Foundation.
The program “combines several technologies, including audio, visual images and thermal images to carry out the detection and identification of animals”, said Emiliano Esterci Ramalho, a researcher at the Mamirauá Institute. “In addition to the Amazon, these technologies will be of great value in researching the biodiversity of tropical forests in the world”, he added.
According to Michel Andre, founder and president of the TSOSF, director of the LAB and responsible for the Providence project in Spain, “the magnitude of the results of the Providence project” is comparable “to the discovery of a planet hitherto hidden from humanity”.