EcoSaver

EcoSaver| A New Perspective

A New Perspective

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic, protected areas and other forms of wilderness areas (e.g., arboretums, beaches, parks, marine monuments) have been closed worldwide. Your challenge is to lead the effort to examine any potential impacts of reduced human traffic in such local protected natural environments.

Summary

In view of the risks of COVID-19 in people’s health, one consequent problem is the increase of fires, due to lack of inspection in the Pantanal Matogrossense National Park. As a solution we presented the possibility of creating microchips with temperature sensors, which will be installed in the extension of the ground, in such manner that they cover the entire park. Thus, they can send information about a possible fire to a database, preventing further loss and degradation to the protected area.

How We Addressed This Challenge

A New Perspective is a challenge about the relation between nature and the social isolation from the pandemic of COVID-19. Coming out of some research, we found out that due to the advanced age of most supervisors, and their risk of getting infected, the fiscalization of environmental crimes in Brazil is reduced. As a consequence, the number of fires occurring has significantly increased, especially in brazilian’s Pantanal. Based on that, we focused our research on the Pantanal Matogrossense National Park.

How We Developed This Project

The team decided to choose this challenge (A New Perspective) because it is undeniable that the social isolation from COVID-19 has many effects on nature, both in a positive and negative way, and that inspired us to search deeply and develop our new technology. We used the space agency data to analyze some satellite images and compare the increase in burning in Pantanal Matogrossense National Park between last year (2019) and this year (2020).

Initially, the team encountered a number of complications and obstacles in finding a proper protected area that has suffered a significant impact after quarantine, as a research object. When we eventually decided the subject of our research, it was fairly simple to accomplish our goals, which were to, first of all, find an innovative and efficient solution, and as that was concluded, it was required that we detailed our project in the most enlightening way possible, send the projects within the deadlines.