One Page Summary

Our proposal is to create the pilot for a geofencing infrastructure in the 2nd bison rewilding site in Romania, the Bison Hillock, in the Tarcu Mountains, SW Carpathians, a WWF priority conservation area and one of Europe’s most valuable areas for maintaining and extending wilderness-a last refuge for some of Europe’s flagship species and landscapes.
Through this, we aim to mitigate the human wildlife conflict by
1. Improving the impact of the bison on the communities living in pristine wilderness areas who are the long-term gatekeepers of these valuable natural hotspots.
2. Helping the rangers know in advance if they have to intervene
3. Involving makers, innovators, engineers and companies to prototype an infrastructure to mitigating human wildlife conflict.
The project has the ability to be scaled-up for the need of tracking large carnivores all over the Carpathians and worldwide within WWF network.
As we have found out, the area of the bison is a valley of 160 ha, consisting of mixed terrain with open field and forrest, with an elevation ranging from 300 to 800 m, as pictured in this map https://drive.google.com/open?id=1yKcP4f6tFAE6BXBwu9GrLiOzIM0CIi53&usp=sharing.
The full blown system would consist of a radio infrastructure spread around the area, sensors installed on a few individuals and a server capturing the data. Through programming, we will define geofences in the area. When anomalies are detected, the rangers will be alerted to take action through sms or email alerts.
The challenge of the project resides in the very wild and mixed geography of the area occupied by the bison. Since it is so wild, the area doesn’t benefit from GSM coverage, giving the problem even more strain.
This is why, through this seeding opportunity, we want to make a feasibility study that would lead to a correctly scaled project in terms of performance and investment.
We have allied with the company Flashnet, that has and will provide with valuable advice concerning the testing and implementation of the project. They are one of the leading smart city companies worldwide, integrating the latest IT, energy and telecommunications technologies into hardware and software solutions, creating and implementing intelligent systems for smarter cities and better infrastructure.
Together with them, we determined that we need to make some decisions through intensive testing. Since they are one of the contributor members in the LoRa network, they advised to use this technology to implement our project. They will also provide with LoRaWAN server and access points that can emulate the conditions in Tarcu Mountains in order to test various modules.
We will form a team of technology specialists from our community and we will engage with the WWF team to get all the intelligence we need. We will need the help of local rangers to find insights about terrain.
LoRa is a technology that has proved results in wildlife management in systems that are not GPS enabled. The black rhino in park in Africa has benefitted from this technology. The LoRa-equipped tracking sensor is part of a comprehensive LoRaWAN™-based IoT security solution that is deployed throughout Mkomazi National Park. The rhino-tracker sensor shows the location of the animals within the sanctuary, allowing the park’s security personnel to strategically position themselves to watch over the rhinos. (Source: https://www.semtech.com/company/press/Semtech-LoRa-Technology-Tracks-Location-of-Endangered-Black-Rhinos-in-Africa).
The project will deploy in an agile managing system, through some conditional milestones. We first need to establish if there is any existing GSM tower close by. Then we need to make a radio assessment of the area to see what is the possible final architecture of the system. Considering the results, we will choose the technology of the trackers installed on the bison, that can be GPS enabled or use triangulation. At this point, we make a choice towards developing a DIY solution for the tracking device or using an off the shelf solution devised by such companies as ShadowView (http://www.shadowview.org) or Chipsafer (https://globenewswire.com/news-release/2017/08/31/1106083/0/en/Semtech-LoRa-Technology-and-Chipsafer-Connects-Cattle-Ranching-to-the-Cloud.html).
With the use of this technology, we will make tests in Brasov area, where a LoRa network is functional, in a terrain emulating Tarcu mountains territory and stress test the chosen modules. Finally, we will install a tower in the reservation and check the real connection of a node. There is the challenge of how to power this station and we are considering solar power.
We will gather mock-up data and feed-it into a web-based platform that can issue alarms if some geographical fences are surpassed.
Completing all described stages, we will be able to assess the full cost and feasibility of the full blown project, thus reaching the level of MVP.