Rainforest Connection is an online system that was developed to inform park rangers protecting rainforests of illegal deforestation activities. The platform fits discarded smartphones with solar panels and utilizes a custom app to to generate real-time data on deforestation activity. The system has the potential to recycle old smartphones while helping environmentalists in ecologically vulnerable areas combat illegal logging.

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Post tags: android smartphones, deforestation, illegal logging, Rainforest Connection, real time, smartphones, Solar Power, sumatra

Who hasn’t experienced the frustration of picking a piece of fruit out of a bowl only to toss it out because it’s covered in a nasty layer of mold? Student designer Jagjit Chodha hopes to put an end to wasted fruit with a new bowl that can actually alert you that your fruit is going bad before it starts to happen.

Read the rest of Brilliant Mold-Detecting Fruit Bowl Alerts You to Rotting Fruit Before it Goes Bad

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Post tags: Bowl monitors rotting fruits, Brunel University, Brunel University London, food innovations, food testing, food waste, Jagjit Chodha, Made in Brunel, Made In Brunel Design and Engineering Show, Molding Fruit Alert, produce waste, reducing food waste, reducing produce waste

Read the rest of Cameron Scott Renovates a World War II Airbase into a Sustainable Single Family Farmhouse in England

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Post tags: adaptive reuse, Airbase, Allies Farmhouse, Cameron Scott, carbon-neutral, England, essex, farmhouse, green renovation, passivehaus, timber frame, Timberdesign, united kingdom, World War II

It appears that Sean Parker, the billionaire who was recently married in a Big Sur redwood forest, might not be the forest trasher that he has been depicted as. Parker sent a letter of explanation in reaction to the original article written by Alexis Madrigal for The Atlantic, which paints a very different picture than the California Coastal Commission’s report. It is true that Parker spent around $10 million to prepare the Big Sur site for his wedding, but what wasn’t reported is that the internet mogul donated an addition $2.5 million to restore the somewhat crumbling private campground after his nuptials were over.

Read the rest of Sean Parker Fires Back at Accusations that He Trashed a Redwood Forest for His $10 Million Wedding

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Post tags: Alexis Madrigal, California Coastal Commission, eco design, green design, Save the Redwoods League, Sean Parker, Sean Parker trashes redwood forest, Sean Parker wedding, sustainable design, The Altantic

Read the rest of Patrice Bideau’s Bioclimatic House in France Balances Beautiful Views With Energy Efficiency

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Post tags: Bioclimate, energy efficient, france, Gulf of Morbihan, house, patrice bideau, residential, Sustainable, sustainable renovation, thermodynamic heating

It’s not unusual for the weddings of the rich and famous to veer into ridiculous excess, but internet billionaire Sean Parker’s recent nuptials really take the over-the-top wedding cake. Parker’s wedding took place in a redwood grove on a Big Sur campground. Apparently the natural grandeur wasn’t good enough for Parker and his guests, because the groom spent a reported $10 million on the festivities, which involved trashing the forest to build a pond and fake castle ruins.

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Post tags: Big Sur campground, Big Sur campground trashed, Big Sur ecological damage, Big Sur ecological system, Big Sur trailhead, Big Sur wedding, California Coastal Commission, CCC, ecological damage, public forests, public spaces, Sean Parker trashes redwood forest, Sean Parker wedding

The world is on a crash course to run out of freshwater, according to United Nation’s Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. At yesterday’s UN’s International Day of Biological Diversity, Ban Ki-moon addressed a number of the water security issues facing the planet today. Only a small amount of water on earth is freshwater, and the Secretary General reinforced that there is a delicate relationship between water and biodiversity.

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Post tags: ban ki-moon, Biodiversity, Climate Change, conservation, ecology, ecosystems, global crisis, United Nations, water issues, water shortage

Last year, the Smithsonian was one of the first American institutions to jump on the 3D printing bandwagon when they scanned and printed a Thomas Jefferson statue from Monitcello. The world-famous museum will now embrace the technology even further by embarking upon a quest to scan its entire collection. From bones to sculptures, the museum will digitally preserve its vast collection of over 14 million items for future generations.

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Post tags: 3D Scanned smithsonian collection, 3d scanning, digital archiving, eco design, green design, smithsonian, sustainable design

Until this past Friday, the U.S. was the only Arctic nation that lacked a formal strategy in its approach to the region. In advance of Wednesday’s Arctic Council meeting in Sweden, the Obama Administration just put forth a vague Arctic policy that seeks to take advantage of emerging opportunities in the region, while recognizing that an undisciplined approach to exploring those new opportunities could threaten national security, interests and the global good.

Read the rest of Obama Administration Sets Forth Vague Policy on the Future of the Arctic

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Post tags: arctic council meeting, center for biological diversity, earthjustic, economic opportunities in the arctic, erika rosenthal, marine oil pollution preparedness and response, new fishing in the arctic, oil and gas exploration in the arctic, rebecca goblin, secretary of state john kerry, shell oil drilling in the arctic, threat to the arctic, tourism of the arctic, U.S. formal policy on the arctic, u.s. state department

In an effort to create a cleaner and greener future, last week the Essex Wildlife Trust officially opened the new Thurrock Thameside Nature Park – a 120 acre reserve built on top of a former landfill. Over the past half a century London has shipped piles of trash up the River Thames to the Mucking Marshes Landfill where it festered as a blemish reminding the world of how messy the human race can be. But after many years of rejuvenation, this new nature park has proven that we can make substantial efforts to reverse what past generations have trashed.

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Post tags: conservation, England, Essex Wildlife Trust, green renovation, landfill, Mucking Marshes, nature reserve, river thames, Sir David Attenborough, Thurrock Thameside Nature Park, van Heyningen and Haward Architects

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Post tags: Architecture, beach house, Bossley Architects, landscape, New Zealand, sustainable home, Thorne Bay House, treehouse

Read the rest of 13 Things We Learned from Some of the World’s Smartest People at Fortune Brainstorm Green 2013

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Post tags: adam lashinsky, andy ruben, andy serwer, aron cramer, Bea Perez, Beyond Meat, brian dumaine, brightfarms, Clarence Otis, Coca Cola, coca cola Chief Sustainability Officer, Cynthia Warner, dan akerson, Darden Restaurants, dean kamen, ebay, Fortune, Fortune Brainstorm Green, fortune green, Fortune Magazine, General Mills, geoff colvin, GM, hannah jones, harrison ford conservation international, Harrison Ford harrison ford green, ikea, iPod inventor, jib ellison, Joe Taylor, John Donahoe, Ken Powell, leigh gallagher, linda greer, marc gunther, natalie allen, nest, Nike, NRG, panasonic north america, Patagonia, Peter Seligmann, pk clean, priyanka bakaya, Procter & Gamble, rick ridgeway, Robert McDonald, Rosalind Brewer, Sam's Club, Sapphire Energy, Steve Howard, surepure, teresa law, Tony Fadell, will sarni, Will.i.am, Yerdle

There is a debate raging between the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI) and the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC) – and LEED certification is caught in the middle. Treehugger reports that the latest battleground is in North Carolina, which recently introduced legislation that would effectively ban LEED in the state. The legislation follows on the heels of similar bills that banned LEED in Maine and the Department of Defense in 2011. Is this an ominous sign of things to come as more state governments bow down to the almighty dollar – or will protecting the world’s forests prevail?

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Post tags: banning LEED, Forest Stewardship Council, leed certification, LEED laws, North Carolina banning LEED, North Carolina green building, North Carolina LEED, North Carolina sustainable building, SFC and LEED, SFI vs SFC, Sustainable Forestry Initiative

A 13-year search for one of the smallest big cats in the world just ended, confirming what many feared: The Formosan clouded leopard is extinct in Taiwan. The more than decade-long search involved 1,500 infrared cameras, baited fur traps, and countless hours of fieldwork by zoologists from Taiwan and the U.S. But habitat loss, poaching and the lack of prey combined to seal the fate of the beautiful cat.

Read the rest of Formosan Clouded Leopard Confirmed to Be Extinct in Taiwan

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Post tags: Animals, clouded leopard, endangered species, extinct leopard, Formosan clouded leopard, habitat loss, Neofelis nebulosa brachyura, poaching, Taiwan, threatened animals, Wildlife, Wildlife conservation

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Post tags: eco technology, energy-efficient homes, green home, green technology, green your home, healthy homes, home solar panels, LED bulbs, solar panels, ways to cut your energy bill, ways to green you home, ways to reduce energy use

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Post tags: Abdullah Al-Hadrami, aga khan award for architecture, ancient preservation, eco design, green design, Social Fund for Development, sustainable design, Thula, Thula Fort, yemen

The United States has been doing a good job of cutting carbon in recent years. Emissions are down 12% in the last 5 years, and half of those cuts have come in the power sector where natural gas, wind and solar have been replacing coal. But when it to comes to electricity emissions from the home, we still have a lot of work to do. In a comparison of sixty countries, we found only Saudis have bigger electricity footprints. The average American uses 4,700 kWh in the home each year, costing them $600 and generating almost three tons of carbon emissions. Getting smart about tackling your electricity use can slash both your power bill and your carbon footprint. Learn more at Shrink That Footprint.

+ Shrink That Footprint

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Post tags: average american carbon footprint, average emissions USA, cut your energy bill, emissions, emissions of the average american, green energy, reduce your carbon footprint, us emissions

A Canadian company has received federal approval to proceed with a uranium mine near the Grand Canyon despite a ban put in place by President Obama last year. Energy Fuels Resources has skirted the ban by producing a 1986 environmental report conducted by the United States Forest Service, The Guardian reports, but several conservation groups and the Havasupai tribe have dismissed the report as being outdated. The mine will clearcut a stretch of land as large as a Walmart parking lot just six miles from the South Rim entrance to the Grand Canyon, which is up to 70 million years old.

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Post tags: Energy Fuels Resources, Environment, environmental destruction, grand canyon, Grand Canyon Trust, Havasupai, Nature, News, Red Wall Aquifer, seven natural wonders of the world, South Rim of Grand Canyon, Travel, uranium, us forest service

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Post tags: "clean energy", "wind power", Antarctic, Brazilian Antarctica, clean tech, Comandante Ferraz Antarctic Station, conservation, eco design, Estudio 41, green design, Keller Peninsula, prefabricated design, research, science, Solar Power, sustainable design, thermal loss, weather proof, Wildlife

There isn’t a one-size-fits-all approach to the single use plastic bag issue since the finer points of each problem can be different and unique to each location. What this interactive map showcases are the stories behind the laws, bans, and taxes imposed in locations all over the world and it makes it easy to track the movement. Click on one of the color-coded pins to find out more about why various locations have a law on the books that prohibits plastic bags, uncover where efforts to implement a bag ban were unsuccessful, and discover the path various locations have taken which led them to put a tax or fee in place on single use plastic bags. This interactive resource offers breaking news and current information that makes it easy to examine and scrutinize the always changing, varied and wide-ranging solutions municipalities and governments put into action to resolve the same problem – how to address the abundance of single use plastic shopping bags.

+ Plastic Bag Ban Community Page

The article above was submitted to us by an Inhabitat reader. Want to see your story on Inhabitat? Send us a tip by following this link. Remember to follow our instructions carefully to boost your chances of being chosen for publishing!

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Post tags: eco maps, interactive maps, maps, plastic bag bans, plastic bag map, plastic bag policy, plastic bags