Topher White: What can save the rainforest? Your used cell phone

Translator: Arinta Puspitasari Reviewer: Gita Arimanda

(Rainforest noises)

(Riuh suara hutan hujan)

In the summer of 2011, as a tourist,

Pada musim panas tahun 2011, sebagai turis,

I visited the rainforests of Borneo for the very first time,

untuk pertama kalinya saya mengunjungi hutan hujan di pulau Kalimantan,

and as you might imagine,

dan seperti yang Anda kira,

it was the overwhelming sounds of the forest that struck me the most.

riuh suara hutannya lah yang paling mengejutkan saya.

There's this constant cacophony of noise.

Terdengar suara hiruk-pikuk yang terus berbunyi.

Some things actually do stick out.

Ada beberapa suara yang terdengar menonjol.

For example, this here is a big bird, a rhinoceros hornbill.

Misalnya, suara ini adalah suara burung yang besar, burung rangkong badak.

This buzzing is a cicada.

Bunyi dengung ini adalah suara jangkrik.

This is a family of gibbons.

Ini adalah sekawanan siamang.

Mereka bernyanyi ke satu sama lain dari kejauhan.

It's actually singing to each other over a great distance.

The place where this was recorded was in fact a gibbon reserve,

Tempat suara ini direkam adalah kawasan suaka untuk siamang,

which is why you can hear so many of them,

makanya suara mereka banyak terdengar,

but in fact the most important noise that was coming out of the forest that time

tetapi suara yang paling penting yang berasal dari hutan waktu itu adalah

was one that I didn't notice,

suara yang tidak saya sadari,

and in fact nobody there had actually noticed it.

dan bahkan tidak seorang pun memperhatikan suara tersebut.

So, as I said, this was a gibbon reserve.

Ini adalah cagar alam untuk siamang.

They spend most of their time rehabilitating gibbons,

Tugas utama mereka adalah merehabilitasi siamang.

but they also have to spend a lot of their time

Akan tetapi, kebanyakan waktu mereka dihabiskan

protecting their area from illegal logging that takes place on the side.

untuk mencegah penebangan liar yang terjadi di hutan.

And so if we take the sound of the forest

Jika kita hilangkan suara-suara di hutan

and we actually turn down the gibbons, the insects, and the rest,

lalu kita turunkan volume suara siamang, serangga-serangga, dan lainnya,

in the background, the entire time, in recordings you heard,

ternyata ikut terekam

was the sound of a chainsaw at great distance.

suara gergaji mesin di kejauhan.

They had three full-time guards who were posted around this sanctuary

Ada tiga orang penjaga yang ditempatkan di suaka ini

whose job was in fact to guard against illegal logging,

yang tugasnya khusus untuk mencegah penebangan liar.

and one day, we went walking, again as tourists, out into the forest,

Lalu suatu hari, kami berjalan, sebagai turis, masuk ke dalam hutan.

and within five minutes' walk,

Setelah lima menit berjalan,

we stumbled upon somebody who was just sawing a tree down,

kami menjumpai beberapa orang yang baru saja menebang pepohonan,

five minutes' walk, a few hundred meters from the ranger station.

sekitar beberapa ratus meter dari pos penjagaan hutan.

They hadn't been able to hear the chainsaws,

Mereka tak dapat mendengar gergaji mesinnya.

because as you heard, the forest is very, very loud.

Sebab, seperti yang Anda dengar, hutannya sangatlah riuh ramai.

It struck me as quite unacceptable that in this modern time,

Yang tidak bisa diterima adalah di masa modern seperti sekarang ini,

just a few hundred meters away from a ranger station in a sanctuary,

hanya beberapa ratus meter dari pos penjaga suaka, di wilayah suaka,

that in fact nobody could hear it when someone who has a chainsaw gets fired up.

tak ada seorang pun yang mendengar ketika seseorang menggunakan gergaji mesin.

It sounds impossible, but in fact, it was quite true.

Seperti tak masuk akal, tapi itulah yang terjadi.

So how do we stop illegal logging?

Bagaimana kita menghentikannya?

It's really tempting, as an engineer, always to come up with a high-tech,

Sebagai seorang insinyur, saya kerap terdorong untuk memunculkan solusi

super-crazy high-tech solution,

berteknologi canggih yang gila,

but in fact, you're in the rainforest.

tapi sayangnya, ini hutan hujan tropis.

It has to be simple, it has to be scalable,

Solusinya harus mudah dan bisa dibuat massal.

and so what we also noticed while were there was that

Selama kami di sana, kami menemukan bahwa

everything we needed was already there.

semua yang kami butuhkan ada di sana.

We could build a system that would allow us to stop this

Kita bisa membangun sebuah sistem yang bisa mencegahnya

using what's already there.

dengan menggunakan apa yang ada di sana.

Who was there? What was already in the forest?

Siapa dan apa yang ada di sana?

Well, we had people.

Kita punya orang-orang.

We had this group there that was dedicated, three full-time guards,

Kita punya kelompok tiga orang yang bertugas untuk menjaga,

that was dedicated to go and stop it,

dan mencegah penebangan liar.

but they just needed to know what was happening out in the forest.

Tapi mereka butuh sesuatu untuk tahu yang terjadi di dalam hutan.

The real surprise, this is the big one,

Yang mengejutkan, dan ini cukup penting,

was that there was connectivity out in the forest.

jaringan ponsel masuk sampai ke dalam hutan.

There was cell phone service way out in the middle of nowhere.

Jaringan ponsel sampai ke tempat-tempat yang tak dihuni.

We're talking hundreds of kilometers from the nearest road,

Bahkan sampai beberapa ratus kilometer dari jalanan terdekat.

there's certainly no electricity, but they had very good cell phone service,

Sudah pasti tidak ada listrik, tapi ada jaringan ponsel yang amat bagus.

these people in the towns were on Facebook all the time,

Penghuni sekitar hutan sering memakai Facebook.

they're surfing the web on their phones,

Mereka menjelajah internet lewat ponsel.

and this sort of got me thinking that in fact it would be possible

Saya berpikir bahwa sangat memungkinkan

to use the sounds of the forest,

untuk memanfaatkan suara-suara dari hutan,

pick up the sounds of chainsaws programmatically,

ambil suara gergaji mesinnya dengan program,

because people can't hear them,

karena tidak bisa didengar orang,

and send an alert.

lalu mengirimkan peringatan.

But you have to have a device to go up in the trees.

Tapi kita harus punya alat yang dipasang di atas pohon.

So if we can use some device to listen to the sounds of the forest,

Jika kita punya alat untuk menangkap suara riuh hutan,

connect to the cell phone network that's there,

menghubungkannya ke jaringan ponsel yang ada,

and send an alert to people on the ground,

lalu mengirim peringatan pada orang-orang,

perhaps we could have a solution to this issue for them.

mungkin masalah ini bisa terselesaikan.

But let's take a moment to talk about saving the rainforest,

Mari sejenak kita berbicara tentang perlindungan hutan hujan.

because it's something that we've definitely all heard about forever.

Kita sudah sering mendengar hal ini didengungkan di mana-mana.

People in my generation have heard about saving the rainforest

Generasi saya kerap mendengar pesan tentang perlindungan hutan

since we were kids,

sejak kami kecil.

and it seems that the message has never changed:

Dan, pesannya tidak pernah berubah:

We've got to save the rainforest, it's super urgent,

Kita harus lindungi hutan, ini perlu diutamakan.

this many football fields have been destroyed yesterday.

Area seluas beberapa lapangan bola sudah hancur kemarin.

and yet here we are today, about half of the rainforest remains,

Dan saat ini, hanya sekitar separuh hutan hujan yang tersisa.

and we have potentially more urgent problems like climate change.

Kita juga dihadapkan pada perubahan iklim yang bisa menjadi permasalahan besar.

But in fact, this is the little-known fact that I didn't realize at the time:

Ada fakta yang tidak saya ketahui ketika itu:

Deforestation accounts for more greenhouse gas

Penebangan hutan menghasilkan gas rumah kaca lebih banyak

than all of the world's planes, trains, cars, trucks and ships combined.

dari pesawat, kereta, mobil, truk, dan kapal di seluruh dunia.

It's the second highest contributor to climate change.

Ini adalah kontributor perubahan iklim tertinggi kedua.

Also, according to Interpol,

Juga, disebutkan oleh Interpol,

as much as 90 percent of the logging that takes place in the rainforest

sebanyak 90 persen penebangan yang terjadi di hutan hujan tropis

is illegal logging, like the illegal logging that we saw.

adalah penebangan liar, seperti yang tadi kita saksikan.

So if we can help people in the forest enforce the rules that are there,

Maka, jika kita membantu orang-orang di hutan untuk menegakkan aturan di sana,

then in fact we could eat heavily into this 17 percent

kita bisa mengurangi yang 17 persen ini,

and potentially have a major impact in the short term.

dan bisa berdampak sangat baik dalam jangka pendek.

It might just be the cheapest, fastest way to fight climate change.

Ini bisa jadi cara paling murah dan cepat untuk mengatasi perubahan iklim.

And so here's the system that we imagine.

Ini sistem yang kami bayangkan.

It looks super high tech.

Terlihat canggih.

The moment a sound of a chainsaw is heard in the forest,

Pada saat terdengar suara gergaji mesin dari hutan,

the device picks up the sound of the chainsaw,

alat ini mengambil suara gergaji itu,

it sends an alert through the standard GSM network that's already there

lalu mengirimkan peringatan melalui jaringan GSM standar yang tersedia

to a ranger in the field

ke penjaga hutan yang bertugas di lapangan

who can in fact show up in real time and stop the logging.

yang bisa langsung menghentikan penebangan tersebut.

It's no more about going out and finding a tree that's been cut.

Ini bukan lagi tiba di lokasi dan menemukan pepohonan yang sudah ditebang.

It's not about seeing a tree from a satellite

Bukan lagi melihat area yang sudah dibabat habis

in an area that's been clear cut,

melewati satelit,

it's about real-time intervention.

ini tentang mencegah pada saat penebangan langsung.

So I said it was the cheapest and fastest way to do it,

Kenapa saya bilang cara ini paling murah dan cepat,

but in fact, actually, as you saw, they weren't able to do it,

padahal mereka belum berhasil melakukannya,

so it may not be so cheap and fast.

jadi mungkin tidak terlalu murah dan cepat.

But if the devices in the trees were actually cell phones,

Tapi jika perangkat yang kita tempatkan di pepohonan adalah ponsel,

it could be pretty cheap.

solusi ini bisa tergolong murah.

Cell phones are thrown away by the hundreds of millions every year,

Ponsel banyak dibuang oleh ratusan juta orang tiap tahunnya.

hundreds of millions in the U.S. alone,

Ratusan juta orang tersebut hanya di AS saja.

not counting the rest of the world, which of course we should do,

Kita belum menghitung yang lainnya, yang juga perlu kita hitung.

but in fact, cell phones are great.

Jadi, ponsel itu sangat hebat.

They're full of sensors.

Banyak sensor di dalamnya.

They can listen to the sounds of the forest.

Ia dapat merekam suara dari dalam hutan.

We do have to protect them.

Kita memang harus menjaganya.

We have to put them in this box that you see here,

Kita harus letakkan di dalam kotak seperti ini

and we do have to power them.

dan perlu dinyalakan.

Powering them is one of the greater engineering challenges

Sumber dayanya jadi salah satu tantangan teknis terbesar

that we had to deal with,

yang harus kita hadapi,

because powering a cell phone under a tree canopy,

Sebab, menyalakan sebuah ponsel di bawah kanopi pohon,

any sort of solar power under a tree canopy,

dengan tenaga surya di bawah kanopi pohon,

was an as-yet-unsolved problem,

adalah masalah yang belum terpecahkan.

and that's this unique solar panel design that you see here,

Dan rancangan sumber tenaga surya unik yang Anda lihat ini

which in fact is built also from recycled byproducts of an industrial process.

dibuat dari produk samping proses industri yang didaur ulang.

These are strips that are cut down.

Ini adalah kepingan-kepingan yang sudah dipotong.

So this is me putting it all together

Ini saya, ketika sedang menyatukannya

in my parents' garage, actually.

di garasi orang tua saya.

Thanks very much to them for allowing me to do that.

Berkat mereka saya bisa melakukan ini.

As you can see, this is a device up in a tree.

Seperti yang Anda lihat, ini adalah perangkatnya ketika di atas pohon.

What you can see from here, perhaps, is that they are pretty well obscured

Jika diamati, perangkat tersebut cukup tersamarkan

up in the tree canopy at a distance.

di kanopi pohon dari kejauhan.

That's important, because although they are able to hear chainsaw noises

Ini penting, karena meski alat ini bisa mendengar suara gergaji mesin

up to a kilometer in the distance,

dari sejauh satu kilometer,

allowing them to cover about three square kilometers,

sehingga melingkupi luas area kira-kira 3 km persegi,

if someone were to take them, it would make the area unprotected.

jika seseorang mengambilnya, area itu jadi tidak terlindungi lagi.

So does it actually work?

Jadi, apakah perangkat ini bekerja?

Well, to test it, we took it back to Indonesia,

Untuk mengujinya, kami kembali ke Indonesia.

not the same place, but another place,

Bukan di tempat yang sama, tapi di tempat lain

to another gibbon reserve

suaka margasatwa untuk siamang juga

that was threatened daily by illegal logging.

yang setiap harinya terancam dengan adanya penebangan liar.

On the very second day, it picked up illegal chainsaw noises.

Di hari kedua, alat ini menangkap suara gergaji mesin ilegal.

We were able to get a real-time alert.

Kami dapat peringatan langsung saat itu

I got an email on my phone.

dari surel yang masuk ke ponsel saya.

Actually, we had just climbed the tree. Everyone had just gotten back down.

Saat itu kami baru saja memanjat pohon itu dan baru kembali dari sana.

All these guys are smoking cigarettes,

Ketika itu orang-orang sedang merokok,

and then I get an email, and they all quiet down,

lalu saya mendapat surel dan semua terdiam.

and in fact you can hear the chainsaw

Lalu terdengarlah suara gergaji mesin

really, really faint in the background,

amat sangat sayup dari kejauhan.

but no one had noticed it until that moment.

Tak seorang pun memperhatikannya sebelumnya.

And so then we took off to actually stop these loggers.

Lalu kami pergi untuk menghentikan para penebang ini.

I was pretty nervous.

Saya sangat gugup ketika itu.

This is the moment where we've actually arrived close to where the loggers are.

Ini saat kami berada sangat dekat dengan para penebang.

This is the moment where you can see where I'm actually regretting

Ini saat saya menyesali,

perhaps the entire endeavor.

mungkin, keseluruhan kerja keras kami ini.

I'm not really sure what's on the other side of this hill.

Saya tidak yakin apa yang terjadi di balik bukit ini.

That guy's much braver than I am.

Orang itu jauh lebih berani dari saya.

But he went, so I had to go, walking up,

Dia terus jalan, jadi saya harus mengikutinya ke atas,

and in fact, he made it over the hill,

dan dia sudah sampai di puncak bukit

and interrupted the loggers in the act.

dan menghentikan para penebang.

For them, it was such a surprise --

Bagi mereka, sungguh mengejutkan --

they had never, ever been interrupted before --

belum pernah sekalipun mereka ketahuan --

that it was such an impressive event for them,

jadi saat itu mereka benar-benar kaget

that we've heard from our partners they have not been back since.

dan kami dengar mereka tidak pernah kembali lagi sejak itu.

They were, in fact, great guys.

Mereka itu sebenarnya hebat.

Mereka menunjukkan bagaimana mereka beroperasi,

They showed us how the entire operation works,

and what they really convinced us on the spot was that

dan mereka meyakinkan kami saat itu bahwa

jika kita bisa menangkap basah dan menghentikan mereka beraksi,

if you can show up in real time and stop people,

it's enough of a deterrent they won't come back.

itu sudah cukup untuk mencegah mereka kembali.

So --

Maka --

Thank you. (Applause)

Terima kasih. (Tepuk tangan)

Word of this spread, possibly because we told a lot of people,

Cara ini sudah tersebar, mungkin, karena kami sampaikan ke banyak orang.

and in fact, then some really amazing stuff started to happen.

Lalu ada hal-hal menarik yang terjadi.

People from around the world started to send us emails, phone calls.

Orang-orang di seluruh dunia mulai mengirimi kami surel dan menelepon kami.

What we saw was that people throughout Asia,

Orang-orang dari seluruh Asia,

people throughout Africa, people throughout South America,

seluruh Afrika, seluruh Amerika Selatan,

they told us that they could use it too,

mereka bilang mereka juga membutuhkannya.

and what's most important,

Dan yang paling penting,

what we'd found that we thought might be exceptional,

apa yang kami anggap mengagumkan adalah

in the forest there was pretty good cell phone service.

di dalam hutan ada koneksi jaringan ponsel yang cukup baik.

That was not exceptional, we were told,

Hal itu biasa saja, katanya,

and that particularly is on the periphery of the forests that are most under threat.

dan itu ada di pinggiran hutan yang areanya paling terancam.

And then something really amazing happened,

Lalu hal yang sangat mengagumkan terjadi,

which was that people started sending us their own old cell phones.

yaitu ketika orang-orang mulai mendonasikan ponsel bekas mereka.

So in fact what we have now is a system

Yang kami punya sekarang adalah sistem

where we can use people on the ground, people who are already there,

yang memanfaatkan orang yang sudah ada di lapangan,

who can both improve and use the existing connectivity,

yang bisa meningkatkan dan menggunakan sambungan yang ada,

and we're using old cell phones that are being sent to us

dan kami menggunakan ponsel bekas yang dikirimkan pada kami

by people from around the world

dari berbagai belahan dunia

that want their phones to be doing something else in their afterlife,

yang ingin memanfaatkan ponsel bekas mereka

yang sudah tidak dipakai lagi.

so to speak.

And if the rest of the device can be completely recycled,

Jika bagian ponsel yang lain bisa didaur ulang,

then we believe it's an entirely upcycled device.

maka ini adalah alat hasil daur ulang total.

So again, this didn't come because of any sort of high-tech solution.

Lagi-lagi, ini bukan solusi berteknologi tinggi.

It just came from using what's already there,

Ini hanya menggunakan hal-hal yang sudah ada,

and I'm thoroughly convinced that if it's not phones,

dan saya yakin kalau bukan dengan ponsel,

that there's always going to be enough there

pasti ada hal lain dalam jumlah yang cukup

that you can build similar solutions

yang bisa membuat solusi yang sama

that can be very effective in new contexts.

dan efektif dalam konteks yang baru.

Thank you very much.

Terima kasih banyak.

(Applause)

(Tepuk tangan)