Method and system for monitoring forestry products

Abstract

A method and system for monitoring forestry products are provided in the present invention, wherein at least one active communicating device is disposed on a forestry product, and reading and transmitting devices are also disposed in specific locations for building a monitoring and management mechanism to protect the forestry products from stealing. By means the method and system of the present invention, it is capable of providing real-time monitoring information and collecting evidence of illegal actions immediately so that the management staff can control the situation and status of the forestry products, which is useful for improving the efficiency of forestry management. Meanwhile, the present invention may also help to find those lawless persons who steal and fell illegally the forestry resources so as to ensure the safety of working environment for forest managing staff and sustainable management of forest and natural resources.

Description

FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0001]The present invention relates to a method and system for monitoring forest products, and more particularly, to a forest monitoring method and system for protecting forest resources form being unlawfully exhausted by lawless persons.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]Comparing with worldwide average of 30 percent, Taiwan's current forest coverage is 58.8 percent that Taiwan is a country with rich forest resources. Forest is considered to be the most massive, complicated, versatile, functional and beneficial ecosystem on Earth that a healthy forest can be the most important stable factor for any biosphere in water catchment area protection, soil erosion protection, environmental filtration / beautification, regional climate control and natural disaster reduction, and so on.[0003]In the forests growing in the Taiwan's mountain areas, there are many indigenous tree species of high economic value, such as juniper, fir and teak. As most of the forests in Taiwan is ...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

The present invention provides a method and system for monitoring forest products by using an active communication device to sense and register the status of the forest product, and to actively issue signals for informing management personnel. The system can also image and identify any suspected carrier used for transporting illegal forest products, and can inform relating authority of such illegal act with high validity. The method and system can issue an abnormal signal as soon as an abnormality is detected, and can thus enable management staff to aware of the status of forest products at any time. The method and system can also allow data registered in the active communication device to be accessible while the active communication device is within a detection range of an access device, and can thus perform a data recording process while the signal emitted from the active communication device is accessed at a specific location. The system can also include a portable communication apparatus for receiving the data signal. Overall, the invention reduces manpower and resource for managing forest products and enhances the efficiency of forest management.

Problems solved by technology

As most of the forests in Taiwan is owned and managed by the government and as those precious trees are spreading within Taiwan's vast mountain reserve, forest management performed only by personnel of Taiwan Forest Bureau can be a very difficult task and thus illegal logging are often heard.

Except for illegal logging, with the rapid progress in biotechnology, many scarce indigenous forest resources such as antrodia camphorata and glossy ganoderma that are raw materials for modern medication are also in danger of being exhausted by some illegal means.

Such behavior not only will damage the forest's ecosystem, but also will eventually exhausting all the forest resources along with the forest itself.

However, such method not only may consume and waste many manpower and money, but also it still can neither provide instant protection against those illegal acts, nor can it provides sufficient evidences to nail those lawless persons.

Although all the aforesaid prior-arts involving the inserting of at least one RFID tag into a tree, they all are only capable of obtaining silvicultural information of the tree in a passive manner.

That is, the information obtained by the aforesaid techniques can only be known while being assessed and they are not able to actively inform the management staff if there is any abnormality for enabling the management staff to aware the abnormality in real time.

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