While the name Ericsson may be more familiar to you due to their recent involvement with our country’s 5G deployment, the Swedish telecommunications giant has recently just completed its latest chapter in its flagship mangrove forest reforestation project in Malaysia called connected Mangroves.
If you head up to the northwestern tip of Selangor and find yourself in the riverside town of Kampung Dato Hormat, Sabak Bernam, you’ll also find Ericsson’s Connected Mangroves project. It’s an initiative that began in 2015 in conjunction with Ericsson’s 50th anniversary in Malaysia, which saw the company help combat the coastal erosion and flooding that was happening in the village due to the deforestation of the mangrove trees.
As such, Ericsson’s Connected Mangroves project was aimed at reforesting the area, with the introduction of a new IoT-based solution that used sensors supported by mobile broadband and cloud technologies. This gave them real time information about the soil and the PH values of water as well as salinity levels. Doing so allowed them to increase the survival rate of the mangrove saplings that they were planting in the area to 85%, up from the 40% survival rate of mangrove saplings when traditional planting methods were used during previous reforestation projects.
Their latest step in this reforestation effort happened during the recent Independence Day celebrations, where volunteers from both Ericsson and Digital Nasional Berhad along with the support of the local community planted 500 more mangrove saplings in the area.
In total, the Connected Mangroves project has now planted 5,000 mangrove trees in Sabak Bernam, all of which are also connected to our 5G network via the aforementioned sensors.
“As a key enabler for digitalization, connectivity democratises access to information and education. 5G will be a catalyst for Malaysia’s digital transformation, even in rural areas which has been made possible with how the 5G network is being rolled out in Malaysia using Ericsson’s industry-leading technology,” – David Hägerbro, Head of Ericsson Malaysia
For more about Ericsson and their Connected Mangroves project, you can check out the documentary below:
