SUBJECT: ENVIRONMENTAL LAW

TOPIC: ROLE OF ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE IN

PREVENTING FOREST CRIME

Submitted to: Submitted by:-

MRS. ABHILASHA SINGH SHUBHANGI PANDEY

(Assistant professor) Admn. No.17GSOL101027

Enorll. No. 1710101027

LLB HONS. 6TH SEM

INTRODUCTION

Accurate information about the forest composition, structure, volume, growth, and extent is
essential for the sustainable forest management and it can be extracted directly or indirectly from
the remotely sensed imagery. Over the past few decades, increasing the attention has been
focused on improving remote sensing applications in the forestry. The sharpest jump in the
number of publications between the 1980s and 1990s reflects the rapid advances in civilian
satellite remote sensing achieved during that period. The Lands at program is world’s longest
remote sensing program for observing Earth resources, and its image is most often used in the
forestry. Along with the development of sensor and computation technologies, remote sensing
applications in forestry have evolved from the conventional aerial photography-based forest
inventories to satellite imagery-based forester source monitoring.

Although remote sensing is widely used in the forestry, technical challenges which still exist.
One of the most critical barriers to remote sensing applications in the forestry is the lack of
timely data collection over target areas. For example, when one wants to assess pest outbreaks or
wildfire spread in afforested landscape, appropriate satellite imagery might be unavailable and
aerial photography from crewed/manned aircrafts might be unaffordable. Moreover, stand-level
information is critical for sustainable forestry but cannot be extracted from medium- or coarse-
resolution remote sensing approaches. Flexible and in ex-pensive remote sensing systems can
help supplement existing remote sensing capabilities and explore new applications. Drones as
remote sensing platforms have the potential to increase the efficiency of data acquisition, but
their applications are still at an experimental stage. Here, we briefly review the fundamental
concepts and initial applications of drone-based remote sensing in forestry research and hope to
guide forestry professionals and researchers to better apply this new geospatial technology.
Forests play an important role in our planet’s ecosystem, acting as home to countless plant and
animal species, offering numerous economic, health, and social benefits to billions of people,
and helping mitigate the effects of climate change. According to the World Bank, forests now
cover approximately 30 per cent of the Earth’s land area. Unfortunately, this figure is expected to
decrease in the future, as deforestation continues to take its toll. The World Bank estimates that
around 1.3 million square kilometres of forest has disappeared between 1990 and 2016. Overall,
about 46 per cent of the planet’s trees have been cut down by humans. Deforestation is driven
mostly by human activity, such as farming, mining, drilling, logging, and urbanisation. However,
humans aren’t solely to blame, as wildfires and overgrazing are also partly responsible for the
problem. With so many things at stake, including the preservation of wildlife, people’s
livelihoods, and potentially even the future of the entire planet, researchers have been looking for
new ways to address this issue, with technologies like drones, artificial intelligence, and block
chain emerging as a potential solution.

Using drones to combat deforestation

In recent years, drones have emerged as an increasingly valuable tool in the fight against
deforestation. The UK-based startup Bio Carbon Engineering, for example, has found a way to
significantly speed up the tree planting process by using drones to fire seeds into the ground. The
first step involves having drones fly over the target area to gather information about its
topography and soil conditions and make an accurate 3D map. This information is then
combined with satellite data and analysed by an algorithm to identify the most suitable locations
for planting, as well as the most efficient planting pattern. The drones then proceed to fire
biodegradable pods filled with germinated seeds and nutrients into the designated spots, which
they can do at a rate of one per second, allowing them to plant up to 100,000 seeds per data.
  

According to the startup, using drones to plant seeds is 10 times faster and 80 per cent cheaper
than manual planting. Another advantage is that it allows them to plant seeds in areas that would
be difficult to reach otherwise. So far, the Bio Carbon team has planted millions of trees in
several different locations around the world, ranging from Myanmar’s mangrove forests to
abandoned mines in Australia. The idea seems to be catching on, with two more startups recently
employing a similar approach: the Seattle-based Drone Seed and Air Seed Technologies in South
Africa.

However, drones can do more than just plant trees; they can also help us combat illegal
deforestation. The high-resolution mapping and imagery gathered by the drones is then
forwarded to the police to help them prepare cases against those involved in illegal activities.
The drone footage is also used to educate local communities about the damage caused by such
destructive practices.

Preserve the world’s forest

Researchers around the world are also increasingly turning to artificial intelligence technology to
protect the world’s forests. Gramener is a data science company that uses AI and machine
learning to fight against all types of human-caused extinctions, including illegal deforestation.
The company recently joined forces with a plantation company in Southeast Asia that wanted to
make sure it was deforesting responsibly by cutting down only those trees that are mature
enough.

Previously, to make deforestation both ecologically and economically viable, the plantation
company had to manually inspect aerial photographs to identify the age and development of trees
in certain areas. While this allowed it to ensure that the trees were large enough and couldn’t
grow any bigger, the process was very time-consuming. These ‘guardian phones’, as they’re
called, have been modified to run on solar cells, which allows them to record all sounds in their
surroundings for 24 hours a day. The recorded sounds are then analysed using artificial
intelligence and machine learning to identify the sounds of chainsaws, vehicles, logging trucks,
people, and gunshots. This method has proven rather effective at stopping poachers in the areas
of central Africa and Latin America. “If you can actually stop them on their way in by detecting
a vehicle or detecting a chainsaw before a lot of damage has been done, the stakes are so much
lower for both sides that you can actually talk it down,” explains White.

What is Artificial Intelligence?

AI might just be the single largest technology revolution of our live times, with the potential to
disrupt almost all aspects of human existence. AI is a constellation of technologies that enable
machines to act with higher levels of intelligence and emulate the human capabilities of sense,
comprehend and act. Thus, computer vision and audio processing can actively perceive the world
around them by acquiring and processing images, sound and speech. The natural language
processing and inference engines can enable AI systems to analyse and understand the
information collected. An AI system can also take action through technologies such as expert
systems and inference engines or undertake actions in the physical world. These human
capabilities are augmented by the ability to learn from experience and keep adapting over time.
AI systems are finding ever-wider application to supplement these capabilities across enterprises
as they grow in sophistication. Irrespective of the type of AI being used, however, every
application begins with large amounts of training data. In the past, this kind of performance was
driven by rules-based data analytics programs, statistical regressions, and early “expert systems.”
But the explosion of powerful deep neural networks now gives AI something a mere program
doesn’t have: the ability to do the unexpected.

Tracking forest wildfires

The use of remote sensing to support real-time fire-control tactics is in its infancy. The MODIS
satellite imagery has a high temporal resolution (1–2 days revisiting time) and is commonly
applied in forest wildfire monitoring and management. However, the low spatial resolution of
MODIS is insufficient for this task at local scales. Crewed aircraft deployments for the real-time
monitoring of the spread of forest wildfires are potentially unsafe to crews. Between 2006 and
2010, NASA and the US Forest Service demonstrated the employment of a large, long-duration
(24 h), fixed-wing drone for assisting forest wildfire management. The drone weighed nearly
five tons and could carry instruments weighing up to one ton. The researchers mounted a
multispectral scanner to autonomously collect image data with 16 bands, ranging from visible to
TIR. The TIR-band information provided enhanced wildfire images. The drone remote sensing
missions provided the near real time (5–10 min) intelligence to support forest wildfire
management. The ability of rotary-wing drones to detect forest wild-fires was also tested in
Portugal and Spain. A series of experiments indicated that rotary-wing drones could effectively
collect real-time data of forest wildfires. Specifically, the simultaneous use of multiple drones,
either autonomous or remotely controlled, allowed larger areas to be measured and obtained
complementary views of wildfires. Medium-and high-altitude drones are more suitable for flying
over wildfire areas.
For weeks, the Amazon rainforest has been burning at a startling rate. Tens of thousands of fires
have been recorded this year — largely started by humans clearing land for logging, ranching or
mining. Weak regulations and the insufficient levels of forest monitoring personnel around the
globe are no match for an illegal timber market worth up to $152 billion. Around a fifth of global
carbon dioxide emissions come from deforestation. But AI can give officials ears all over the
forest, listening for chainsaws and unauthorized vehicles — warning signs of illegal logging in
progress. 

If a Tree Falls in the Forest, AI Will Hear It

AI Speaks for the Trees: Outland Analytics edge devices can be mounted to a tree to listen for
chainsaws and unauthorized vehicles. While some organizations use satellite imagery or trail
cameras that might provide notifications to forest rangers, those methods typically don’t provide
immediate results — and it’s near impossible to identify individuals from the footage. Low-
latency AI models that analyze audio could shorten response times, giving rangers minute-to-
minute visibility into large areas of forest.

If the neural network detects a chainsaw or unauthorized vehicle, it’ll contact officials through an
email to a dispatch center or a text message to an individual ranger. Authorities can then head to
the scene to catch potential environmental crimes in progress. The low-maintenance device can
be mounted at any height on a tree and is charged by solar power — though it can last a few days
without sun. But it’s much harder to nail down exactly which parts of forest are most at risk, and
when, especially because up to 90 percent of tropical deforestation is due to criminal activity,
according to the UN. San Francisco-based nonprofit Rainforest Connection believes that
machine learning can be the next ally in the good fight.

The team of engineers and developers built a complex system of sensors that can endure extreme
weather and other stresses in the rainforest, using modified smart phones powered by solar
panels. The key, they say in a blog post, is to hide the devices — they call them “Guardians” —
amidst the trees in vulnerable areas, so they remain hidden. The sensors record the sounds of the
forests and upload them onto a cloud-based server in real time. Google’s AI framework Tensor
Flow sifts through forest sounds to isolate suspicious noises such as chainsaws and logging
trucks in real time. Not even the most sophisticated system can make a difference in isolation —
observations of surreptitious logging are meaningless if there aren’t laws to protect the forests,
and forces to intervene promptly when someone violates those laws. When the right regulations
are in place, keeping an ear out for illegal logging can ensure that conservation laws are put into
practice.

It’s a historic moment for Artificial Intelligence (AI). All the pieces are coming together: big
data, advances in hardware, emerging powerful AI algorithms, and an open source community
for tools that reduces barriers to entry for industry and start-ups alike. The result: AI is being
propelled out of research labs and into our everyday lives, from navigating cities, ride shares, our
energy networks, to the online world. In 2018 everyone is starting to see the business value of
AI. It is being added to more and more things every year, and it is getting smarter and smarter –
accelerating human innovation. But as AI becomes more powerful, more autonomous and
broader in its use and impact, the unsolved issue of AI safety is paramount. Risks include: bias,
poor decision making, low transparency, job losses and malevolent use of AI, such as
autonomous weaponry.

The challenge, however, goes beyond guiding “human friendly AI” to ensuring “Earth friendly
AI”. As the scale and urgency of the economic and human health impacts from our deteriorating
natural environment grows, we have an opportunity to look at how AI can help transform
traditional sectors and systems to address climate change, deliver food and water security, build
sustainable cities, and protect biodiversity and human wellbeing.

A NEW WEAPON AGAINST POACHERS

Chheng has a new weapon in the battle against poachers: Protection Assistant for Wildlife
Security (PAWS), predictive AI software that crunches massive amounts of data and leverages
machine learning to suggest the most effective patrol routes. More accurate than human intuition,
the software employs mathematical modeling and game theory.
The USC Center for Artificial Intelligence in Society (CAIS), PAWS uses algorithms to
intelligently randomize ranger schedules to combat poaching by keeping the poachers off-
balance, making it impossible for them to identify the exploitable patrol patterns. Poachers have
no idea when and where rangers will appear.

Through its integration with the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART), PAWS
could be introduced into about 100 wildlife sanctuaries in Africa and Asia by early next year,
and 300 to 600 worldwide by the end of 2020, according to Jonathan Palmer, chief technology
officer of the SMART partnership, a consortium of nine global conservation agencies including
Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS), WWF and Panthera, and more than 60 governmental
partners committed to improving the management of protected areas around the world.

SMART is a digital tracking tool that allows rangers to collect and manage patrol data, said
Palmer, who also serves as executive director of strategic technology at WCS. Conservation
agencies have successfully deployed it at natural reserves around the world, leveraging historical
data to help rangers identify areas likely to attract illicit hunting and logging. Unlike PAWS,
though, SMART cannot predict poaching hotspots. That’s why the combination of SMART and
PAWS should prove so powerful. PAWS will deliver insights into protected areas around the
world using artificial intelligence that weren’t even possible to dream about five years ago,”
Palmer said. “Those insights will help rangers better protect wildlife everywhere.

A SUCCESS STORY

In the largest controlled field experiments of AI-prediction ever conducted, rangers in Uganda’s
Queen Elizabeth National Park tested PAWS between November 2016 and June 2017. The
software directed rangers to infrequently patrolled regions that PAWS identified as magnets for
poachers. The rangers, despite their initial skepticism, went to those areas and found lots of
snares and traps there. Our predictive model showed them hotspots they would have otherwise
missed. The tests of the PAWS algorithms were very encouraging and show the potential to
make ranger patrols much more efficient and effective, who helped oversee the Uganda trials
when he worked for Wildlife Conservation Society.
They also demonstrated that PAWS can target where rangers are likely to disrupt illegal
activities, an environmental nonprofit comprised of 13 non-governmental organizations. The
results of the two Uganda field tests helped lead to the impending marriage between PAWS and
SMART.

CONCLUSION

The world’s forests are disappearing at an alarming rate, threatening not just the survival of the
plant and animal species that call them home, but also the livelihoods of billions of people who
depend on forests for fresh water, food, income, and many other things. Furthermore, as forests
play a key role in reducing the impacts of climate change by absorbing carbon dioxide emissions,
their dwindling numbers could endanger the future of the entire planet as well.

There’s still hope, though. In recent years, technologies such as drones, artificial intelligence,
and block chain have emerged as a potential solution to this issue. From drones that
autonomously plant seeds to AI systems that can detect sounds associated with illegal logging,
technology has become an increasingly valuable tool in the fight against deforestation.
While reforestation alone probably won’t be enough to reverse the effects of climate change, it
may be worth pursuing as a complement to other strategies and could move us closer to reaching
that goal. The implications of recent advances in Artificial Intelligence (AI) have spurred heated
debate globally. As science fiction starts to become reality, AI products are slowly infiltrating
homes and workplaces. This is raising concerns about the potential detrimental effects of AI on
the job market, or even about the dangers of an AI singularity, where sentient robots take over
the world and destroy humans.

AI has the potential to greatly improve things like healthcare, education, poverty and security. AI
machines can do some very beneficial things already today that humans will simply never be
able to. If we leverage that to augment what humans do well, AI could positively impact society,
business, and culture on the order of magnitude of the internet itself.

I call this using AI to scale the human mind, not replace it. The human brain is the most elegant
computer in existence. We process millions of sensory inputs automatically and constantly,
allowing us to learn and respond to our environment. But the human brain only contains about
300 million pattern processors that are responsible for human thought. What if we could
complement all of our amazing ideas with not just more data, but also orders of magnitude more
data processing capability? Imagine how we would rethink every single problem that exists
today.

Even with today’s primitive forms of AI, there is enough technology out there to start doing
exactly this. The examples below draw from a variety of industries to illustrate the magnitude of
social impact possible when we couple AI with human skill and ingenuity.