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Slack.com slash DHQ. On a hot day in 2013, in a forest in Sumatra, surrounded by tall

trees and the deafening sounds of jungle life, National Geographic Explorer Tofer White began

placing the first versions of a device he'd designed to detect illegal logging.

We were putting them along the outskirts where they expected their be logging. He'd gotten

a tip that this small patch of forest had been a target for black market lumberjacks, and

the local rangers were having a hard time catching them. They were eager to test out Tofer's

devices to see if they could help. In that day, Tofer was scrambling to get the technology

ready for their first test run. Anyone who knows me, you know that I like barely managed

to get any semblance of the hardware finished like the night before leaving. The devices

record sounds of the forest and analyze them for the dead giveaway vibrations of a chainsaw.

You know, I think we're putting that up like the second or third device ever, and I get

this alert on my phone that's distinct her chainsaws, you know, and I'm just like, whoa,

everyone quiet down. The forest is loud. In between the cicadas and the songbirds and

all the other noises, a human might not be able to pick up on the distant buzz of a gas

engine. And it's true that in the distance, you can barely hear this chainsaw, but no

one had really picked it up. And this set off this amazing reaction of everyone, like

two guys jump on the motorcycles, the rest of us set off across the forest and, you know,

...