TREEKER

Treeker deals with environmental challenges particularly with deforestation threats, reforestation issues, and the lack of awareness about how trees benefit humans and society.

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  • Philippines

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  • CHALLENGE #2 Environmental Challenges

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Description

Oneliner

  • Seek, restore, and earn! Treeker provides a new dimension and experience for tree planting and restoration activities while discovering the hidden values of our forests.

Solution and Use Case

  • Treeker provides a solution to combat deforestation and reforestation issues in the Philippines. With this system, you will be able to identify locations suitable and in need of your trees, and track their development that could earn you rewards and money.
  • Globally, widespread deforestation has made a huge impact on local ecosystems, threatening the extinction of hundreds of indigenous species of flora and fauna. With this, reforestation has been the key priority. However, planting trees manually can be very labor-intensive, and putting the trees in the ground is only the first step. We need to keep track of whether these trees continue to grow, how much carbon they store, and what other benefits they provide. Not all tree-planting programs succeed, just as not all trees reach maturity. Tracking tree growth, survival, and development will:
    • Help governments, businesses, and non-governmental organizations (NGOs) understand how far they have come on their pledges,
    • Encourage people to replicate successful projects, 
    • Tweak those that are not working, and 
    • Invite funders to keep investing where they can see the previous results and the potential markets.
  • In response to the issues regarding deforestation and sustainable reforestation, Treeker could help to set tree planting programs, identify and suggest sites to be restored as well as the suitable species to be planted, and monitor the species biodiversity in the area. Using Treeker will provide several advantages especially with the involvement of Galileo in its system, these include:
    • Before planting trees, satellite imagery will be utilized to examine important factors that will determine the status of the site like soil condition, present vegetation, and those that are associated with the aboveground and belowground environment. The involvement of Galileo in Treeker will prove as an advantage as it will be able to see the area at a vast scale, and thus making big-scale tree-planting operations much easier to plan.
    • The rate at which tree planting and restoration activities will increase as the integration of Galileo into the system would provide more accurate information and significantly enhance the position approximation, resulting in high-precision maps.
    • Individuals who will use Treeker will have an opportunity to earn points that can be redeemed for money and other rewards. This will also provide means for businesses and entrepreneurs to maximize Treeker.

Use of GNSS

  • Using satellite imagery, locations will be determined where trees are needed or can be planted. Galileo will prove to be useful in identifying the areas or locations that people would want to plant trees or restore. It will serve as a faster and more accurate medium in tree planting activities and monitoring. With the Geotag trees, the location of the plant will be positioned and the user also gets a chance to provide helpful details.
  • Using NDVI from Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) satellite data can determine areas of vegetation vulnerability by measuring the vigor of vegetation growth and its monitoring in the area will be provided in the application. The progress of the activities will be monitored. Such vegetation mapping is sure to be efficiently done using Galileo and other technologies mentioned above for determining species and groups of vegetation, measuring vegetation in three dimensions, and mapping vegetation spectrally, spatially, and temporally. The control team uses data from this “smart map”, combining it with satellite data to create an algorithm for a unique planting pattern that works for that piece of land.

Specific Use of Galileo

  • High Accuracy Service (HAS) -  it can be used for tree planting and restoration activities such as soil condition monitoring, cultivation of seedling/sampling, and geotagging. HAS is expected to enhance GIS applications to generate more accurate maps, and because it provides free access to high-accuracy data, it may also help the development of new services connected to planting and restoration. 
  • Open Service (OS) - since it enhances positioning performance for high precision systems,  this can be utilized to provide better results and measurements in forest areas, primarily those that are characterized by severe environments like tropical rainforests and montane forests.

Target Market

  • Latest reports have suggested that the Philippines has currently about 7 million hectares of forested land. This is alarming because forests provide a wide array of benefits, from timber and NTFPs like fruits and oils to intangible ones like carbon sequestration, improvement of nutrient and biogeochemical cycles, and bioenergy. In fact, the sector accounts for 10.2 percent of the country's GDP or equivalent to 1.78 trillion Philippine pesos in 2020. And, although there are efforts to restore Philippine Forests like the National Greening Program (NGP), this has been considered a massive failure. 
  • Treeker will essentially involve the following to facilitate changes in tree planting and restoration activities:
    • Local Government Units
    • Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs), 
    • Private Sectors
    • Local Entrepreneurs
    • Communities particularly those that make Forests are their livelihood

Innovation

  • Treeker will serve as a system to facilitate tree planting program activities using GNSS since this is not yet well implemented in tree planting and monitoring in the Philippines.  With the innovative development of this system, the  NGOs, Government, and any private sectors who plan and advocate tree planting programs will find it easier to find volunteers for the activities. They can post their programs where people can join in, at the same time having this opportunity to earn points that will be used to redeem money. 

Technical Back-End

  • Treeker, with the support of Galileo and other technologies, will be able to present spatial resolution in much greater detail than the others, which will aid in determining the best approach to tree planting and restoration activities. And because Galileo and other mechanisms involved in the system allow a substantial increase in accuracy for high-precision applications, GNSS-related requirements will ensure that Treeker will be able to reach the solutions provided.

Proof of Concept

  • Potential design of Treeker:

Team

  • In a society where forests are undervalued, Treeker addresses issues associated with deforestation, reforestation challenges, and the misconception about how trees provide essential products and services to humans and the society itself.
  • By realizing the importance of GNNS, particularly of Galileo, to forests as well as related areas like agriculture, farming, and watershed in other countries, we believe that Treeker could make an essential contribution not only in the sector but also in improving forest-based livelihoods in the Philippines.
  • The people behind Treeker consist of forestry students which are led by Ms. Rajna Carrasco, followed by Mr. Jheilon Quilloy and Mr. Rob Galdo.
    • Ms. Carrasco is specializing in Remote Sensing and its use in Non-Timber Forest Products (NTFPs) and Forest Restoration.
    • Mr. Quilloy also specializes in Remote Sensing, GIS Technology, and Landslide/Erosion Risks.
    • Mr. Galdo is specializing in Industrial Management and Bioenergy.