Tropical Rainforest: How can we save the rainforest?

1. The phones can transmit sounds of illegal activity such as chainsaws, gunshots and logging trucks and alert authorities.

2. Researchers at London Zoo are leading a pioneering project that uses recycled smartphones to make listening devices.

2.1. The project is being run jointly by the by the Zoological Society of London (ZSL) and Rainforest Connection, an environmental conservation start-up that uses 'upcycled' mobile technology to monitor and protect remote forests in real-time.

3. The project recycles old smartphone handsets and adapts them to run on eco-friendly and renewable solar power.

4. The device could be a critical new tool for protecting large areas of rainforest.

4.1. The project could solve two important problems: improving unreliable information on logging, and reducing the environmental impact of old, discarded smartphones.

5. The technology has been tests at a gibbon sanctuary in Indonesia, where it protected them from illegal loggers.

6. Each phone can protect up to one square mile of rainforest from logging. This prevents the release of 15,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide – the equivalent released by 3,000 cars – into the atmosphere.