How smartphones can help track illegal deforestation

Deforestation in Cameroon has increased fourfold from 2006 to 2014, but the spread of cheap smartphones can be used to turn this tide

When I first visited Cameroon in 2007, mobile networks had just spread outside the cities, beginning a revolution in how remote villages could connect with each other and the wider world. Very few people owned their own phone, but homemade wooden stands renting them out by the minute could be found at almost every road junction. A few years later the micro-entrepreneurs are still there, but they now sell SIM cards and phone credit vouchers, as almost every adult has access to a phone (World Bank figures show Cameroon went from 17 phones per 100 adults in 2006 to 76 in 2014).

It is hard to overstate the transformational effect the rapid proliferation of mobile phones has had on rural societies in the developing world. Villages and towns that never received fixed line phones, and are only slowly being connected to electricity grids, now have a cheap means of communication with friends, family and business partners. Further, mobile phones have given the world's poorest people access to the internet, connecting them to a wealth of information and opportunities unimaginable just a decade ago.