MANAUS: Small, artificially intelligent boxes tied to tree trunks in the Brazilian Amazon are the latest weapon in the arsenal of scientists and environmentalists battling destructive jungle invaders.

The boxes, named “curupiras” after a folkloric forest creature who preys on hunters and poachers, sport sensors and software trained “to recognise the sounds of chainsaws and tractors, or anything that could cause deforestation,” project manager Thiago Almeida said.

“We recorded the sound of chainsaws and tractors in the forest... then, all the collected sounds were passed on to the AI team to train (the programme) so that... it would only recognise these sounds and not the characteristic sounds of the forest, such as animals, vegetation and rain,” he explained.

Once identified, details of the threat can then be relayed to a central point and agents deployed to deal with it.

“The advantage of this system is that it can detect an attack... or a threat in real time,” said researcher Raimundo Claudio Gomes of the Amazonas State University behind the project.

Unlike satellite data, which reveal deforestation only after the fact, the curupiras can detect “when the destruction starts,” he added.

The sensors look like small internet modems but are in fact wireless and can relay data up to one kilometre via satellite to others in a network.

The project has just completed its pilot phase with ten prototype boxes fixed to trees in a densely forested area near Manaus, the capital city of Brazil’s northern Amazonas state.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2023