Connecting IOT devices to monitor tree planting initiatives in Sri Lanka
September 20, 2019
The above is a recent write up by the Economist on the early studies and research done on climate change.
- 1900s — the deliberate burning of fossil fuels such as coal, produced about 2Bn nons of carbon dioxide.
- The 1950s — saw industrial emissions had increase 3 fold.
- And the at present: 2019 — carbon emissions are close to 20 times that much.
1. THE CURRENT MINDSET ON CLIMATE CHANGE
With the rampant use of fossil-fuels in the 20th century, countries like Americas, China, Japan, India, Germany fueled their need to mass produce steel to push ward the manufacturing revolution. Industrial production to x1000 the effect — accelerating steel and electronic device production for local and global consumption.
Being stifled by the WW I and II, China, the US and Germany and such countries, accelerating their efforts into household items, transport and other steel based equipment — tapped into the ground, depleting most of the steel and oil resources without any concern for future generations.
That coupled with World population numbers steadily increasing over the last 4 decades played a contributory factor adding to global carbon emissions. Increased population also led to deforestation to clean lands for house, raining cattle to feed into housing and food supply.
The current environmental conservation initiative landscape has been in active ever since Paris Climate Accord was agreed with 196 countries across the globe to transform their development workflow to set the world on a course towards sustainable development, aiming at limiting warming to 1.5 to 2 degrees C above pre-industrial levels.
2. THE WORK BEHIND UNLESSNOW
Having registered the business in the UK, a team of 3 individuals set out to build a framework in place to connect local Corporates with ground level tree planting NGOs and long term vision to sequester 10 million tons of Co2 by the year 2030.
The idea to support existing teams in all countries to monitor and mitigate action toward the common cause. Initial steps were taken to partner up with the UNDP, Sri Lanka under their local mandate ’15. Life on land’ to meet their tree cover by 2022.
Discussions were also had with the Forest Depart of Sri Lanka, to identify which areas of government lands were allocated for tree planting efforts. Partnering up with private land owners was risky move forward as a successful tree planting program will need to be held on for 5–10 years for the tree to mature to sequester the most carbon in its lifetime.
3. MAKING THE CONNECTION BETWEEN GROUND LEVELS TEAMS (Enablers) AND CORPORATES (Financial backers)
Having made the connection with the UNDP, Sri Lanka the Unlessnow Team were connected with 12 small NGO teams in Matale, Kurunegala and Anuradhapura to implement reforestation work during the next 18–24 months. Funding and man hours was the main issue as all other aspects had been tried and tested within the UNDP, Sri Lanka teams.
Botanists, Soil Scientists and growth experts were been deployed at small scale, but progress is slow and time consuming.
Taking this idea to the Chamber of Commerce, we were identified as a Environmental Impact project and an email was sent out within the database to see if Corporates have any interests as a partner with CSR/ community development in mind. The feedback was positive with firms such as Virtusa, Load Star and DFCC Bank showing interest to adopt a monitoring framework for their existing planted trees.
If the right fit was achieved, the Corporates will be allocated a block of land where they will take ownership of efforts over the next 12–24 months, which will reflect setting off their carbon output in their respective areas.
4. THE TOOL BEHIND THE INITIATIVE
The website Unlessnow.org was created with a Google Search Engine via Google Adwords to bring in money for reforestation costs as well as to show progress of work carried out by these Corporates.
As a Phase II implementation, Unlessnow.org are planning to develop a project management app to show how many trees planted, planted areas, tree cover and teams attending to the site, and areas of concern as a measuring tool.
The room for growth by awarding carbon certification will also be implemented to foster more corporates, to validate their CSR activities, thereby increasing their brand value towards sustainable community initiatives. The room for other private firms like earthly.com to drive community led initiatives and gudppl.com to fast track volunteer groups at scale.
An initial fee structure was established to get corporates to come onboard, so that experts at team levels will be able to carry out work and show progress on a quarterly basis.
5. AUTOMATION AND ACCOUNTABILITY
As more Corporates come on board, the scalability of the project is intended to take shape. The accountability factor is backed up by UNDP, Sri Lanka personnel and together with data gatherers input.
As part of PHASE III, the initiative will implement IoT (Internet of Things) devices placed around specific tree planted zones to monitor fires, strong winds and animal activity that may be harmful to sustain trees planted in these zones.
More updates to this areas will be shared in future posts at: https://medium.com/thatsalih
Sources
- https://www.economist.com/briefing/2019/09/21/the-past-present-and-future-of-climate-change
- https://unfccc.int/process-and-meetings/the-paris-agreement/the-paris-agreement
5. https://www.un.org/en/climatechange/un-climate-summit-2019.shtml
8. https://www.lk.undp.org/content/srilanka/en/home/sustainable-development-goals.html
