Rationale

Project Scope

The traceability system to trace smuggled timber to different locations must be incorporated into the illegal logging IoT solution to build the complete monitoring system. However, the wireless node that will be attached to the timber to find out the location with the help of GPS is not suitable for this project. Smugglers can anytime remove the wireless node before taking the timber to different locations. We need to reduce the size of the wireless node to be embedded into the timber. Moreover, though the wireless node is not removed from the timber, the wireless communication between the node and the server is not possible when the distance between the node and server increases. The node shown on the neck of the cow has the GPS to find the exact location of a cow using the longitude and latitude data available in our system (Priyanka, Chethan, Harisha, Madhurya, & Bhargav, 2019).

The research will cover detection of illegal logging activities in the national parks – noise detection and vibration detection and then send a notification to forest rangers either as a text message on their smartphones using mobile apps or display the information on the web application or other method of information network after a feasibility study. The research is limited to the illegal logging detection system and traceability functions which can be improved using GPS and GSM platforms.

Problem Domain

The conservation of national parks aims at protecting trees and improve forest cover which is the backbone of a forest conservation program in every country. Forest rangers employed by the Governments are responsible for preventing illegal threats to the national parks. However, some national parks are located in the mountains away from motor roads making patrolling cumbersome tasks. Therefore, illegal logging of timber for international trade or other usage is a major problem (Lawson & MacFaul, 2010). Illegal logging is the problem associated or resulted from poor forest management and poor or no preventive method implementation. Such illegal activities lead to exploitation of the forest resources and eventually destroys the habitat of the wild animals.

One biggest problem concerning the National Parks conservation around the globe is illegal logging. The study shows that more than a hundred million cubic meters of timber are being stolen every year as of 2010. Due to the depletion of forest cover around the globe, the global carbon dioxide emission increases by twenty percent (Cross, 2019). This research will be focussing mainly on the methods based on the technology to prevent illegal logging.

Purpose and Justification

The reason behind this research on using IoT which is emerging technology to protect National Parks is that technology has the potential to improve the way we do things. We will find out how IoT based solutions can be used in detecting illegal logging and in future how transported woods can be traced.

The important part of my research is to find out how feasible the IoT solutions are in monitoring forest. The nature of work to monitor National Parks due to its locations such as in the mountains and vast coverage demands IoT solutions and technology suitable to reduce field visits while monitoring. As there will be less illegal logging after implementation of IoT enabled technology in monitoring trees, conservation of National Parks will be easier.

Brief Literature Review

Illegal logging has been the greatest threat for national park conservation and monitoring of trees all the time is challenging due to geographical barriers, lack of motor road and vast area coverage. It requires the physical presence of forest rangers to prevent from cutting down trees. At least twenty-two companies in the US are involved in importing illegal wood from Peru (Gordon, 2016). The illegal logging operations have surpassed legal logging operations in Peru resulting in depletion of some species of trees (Gordon, 2016). To address the issue of illegal logging, IoT based tree monitoring solutions are required.

IoT based solution with the feature of chainsaw noise identification on wireless Sensor Network and vibration detection has been proposed. However, after recognizing illegal activity, it is also crucial to locate where the illegal cutting of trees is happening to catch smugglers. Forest monitoring system using LoRa and Drones has also been proposed – The drones with LoRa gateways fly over the trees and collect data from sensors located on the bottom of the farm (Park, Yun, Kim, Kwon, &Ganser, 2018, June). This allows remote access to locations that are difficult to reach.

The IoT solution intended for recognizing chainsaw noise, vehicle engines and other machinery equipment to alert forest rangers cannot solve illegal logging completely. There are many things we can add to the system such as vibration detection and tracing system embedding into the wood to detect whereabouts of smuggled timber, etc. The use of drones with LoRa gateways hovers over geographically large farm fields to gather data from the nodes on the ground (Park, Yun, Kim, Kwon &Ganser, 2018, June). This way of forest monitoring is helpful as long as drones are flying but detection of illegal logging at all times is not feasible.

To build the IoT enabled solution that will monitor the activity throughout the day to stop smuggling the precious timber, we need to incorporate improved methods.

Research Questions

1. How beneficial is the implementation of IoT solutions in national parks?
2. How efficient are the current IoT solutions in forest monitoring?
3. How available are the IoT solutions in the market?
4. What is the key (criteria) IoT solutions relevant to the research?

Conceptual Framework.

The concepts proposed throughout the journal articles addresses the issues of illegal logging but there is no wide implementation of the proposed concept. Foresters usually monitor forest measurement by field visits to collect data of growth, forecasting and analysis purposes. This means the existing system concept proposal needs more maturity and further study to be able to develop into the business application. The readily available forest monitoring business application is IoTrees focusing on the interaction with forest data to monitor and check forest growth and health to decide when to when to apply vegetation control.

National parks monitoring solutions will benefit forest management and Government in many ways. Forest management requires human intervention and monitoring is usually carried by field visits bearing huge amounts of cost. With the implementation of a monitoring system, human intervention to manage forests will be greatly reduced. Some of the identified technology for the potential use for systems are microcontroller, sensors, IoT modem, LCD/mobile apps/web application to display information, GPRS, LPWAN, servers, etc. The current research project aims to make use of these technologies and other available technology to propose a system concept – both sound detection as well as vibration detection method will be discussed and if possible, tracing method for smuggled woods can be studied.

The system components can be improved by replacing with the newer and updated version for further efficiency in the future. The wireless communication and speed of the data delivery, detection sensors and every component can be upgraded. In addition to the detection system of illegal logging, we can also further enhance the system by adding a traceability system to the trees.

Methodology

Research Methods

To confirm the credibility of the information and resources, the search method such as CSU primo search, google scholar and google book will be used. Information gathering based on published websites, blogs and social media content is not considered credible. It is important to compare and evaluate numerous relevant journal articles to find out methods and then evaluate to implement in our current research project. So, websites, blogs and social media will not be used for this research project.

Data Collection Methods

Data/information for this project research will be collected using CSU primo search, google scholars and different journal databases. Different project research in the field of a chosen topic will be compared and checked on technology, methods and processes used to find out better solutions and limitations that can be improved. The credibility of the information gathering is essential for the project outcome to be successful. Therefore, only published journal articles relevant to the topic will be used for information gathering.

Ethical Issues

The ethical issues that may result while doing the project research are plagiarism. Since plagiarism is not acceptable, it is very important not to make use of plagiarized materials in the research project. It is an intellectual theft not only against the regulations but also it is ethically and morally wrong to use somebody’s hard work without even thinking. The main resources that will be used for this research project are to publish research articles from CSU primo search and Google Scholar. It is recommended to acknowledge researchers and contributors through proper referencing and citation. Data collection methods such as interviews and surveys will require consent from participants and some data/information may require safe storage to prevent it from leaking. Therefore, any sort of data collection method that requires the participant’s consent and confidentiality of data will not be used.

Project plan

Deliverables

Work Breakdown Structure

Gantt Chart

Risk Analysis

The major risk associated with writing this research paper would be plagiarism as it is common among students. There is limited research conducted on similar topics and becomes harder to think about newer technology and methodologies that could be helpful for such system development. But we can understand the concept behind published research articles and try finding out their limitations and incorporate changes into the implemented technology or find different ways to improve the method employed. By doing this, we not only working towards better but also prevent using plagiarised materials.

Impacts and Challenges

The main challenge of this research work is producing workable or ready to use project output. There is a lot of technology that we can prioritize, but to choosing the right technology for the research is difficult unless we research thoroughly. We are recommended to go through twelve articles and that requires abundant reading but this will impart with maximum knowledge and ideas to write a research project. There is not too much research focused on the same topic, but there is research in similar relevant fields. With the completion of this research project, the first direct positive impact is my successful completion of the emerging technology research project. Once the research is complete, IoT enabled solution can be implemented in monitoring forest.

Summary

The main problem identified for this research is that safeguarding National Parks has been done through manual human intervention which is laborious and costly. The proposed solution against this problem is IoT enabled solutions to detect illegal logging and send a notification to forest ranger so that they can take action to prevent smuggling. The research methodology employed for this project is mainly reading thoroughly the previously published research articles relevant to the identified problem from CSU primo search, google scholars and google books. For the safety of data confidentiality and storage, interviews and surveys won’t be used. There are four main deliverables; project title & blog post, project proposal & plan, annotated bibliography & journal synopsis and finally final report & presentation. For each deliverable, research activities are mentioned in the WBS and Gantt Chart for scheduling and planning to follow while working on this research project. The purpose of this project is to produce illegal logging detection IoT enabled feasible solutions. The IoT solution for detection of illegal logging will have a positive impact on monitoring National Parks as it will reduce manual work of field visits to gather information and prevent/reduce illegal logging.

  

References

Lawson, S., & MacFaul, L. (2010). Illegal logging and related trade. Indicators of the Global Response, Chatham House (The Royal Institute of International Affairs) London, July, 132.

Cross, Lucienne. (2019/05/16). How National Parks benefit the environment.  Retrieved from https://inhabitat.com/how-national-parks-benefit-the-environment/

Gordon, S. M. (2016). The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act: prosecute corruption and end transnational illegal logging. BC Envtl. Aff. L. Rev., 43, 111.

Park, S., Yun, S., Kim, H., Kwon, R., & Ganser, J. (2018, June). Forestry monitoring system using LoRa and Drone. In Proceedings of the 8th International Conference on Web Intelligence, Mining and Semantics (pp. 1-8).

IoTrees – Internet of Trees. (n.d.). Retrieved from https://business.esa.int/projects/iotrees

Priyanka, R., Chethan, C. K., Harisha, K. M., Madhurya, B. R., & Bhargav, A. Cattle Robbery Avoiding System and Tracking of Stolen Cattle using IoT.