Save Elephants By Transferring Your Domain Names

By John Shepler

Here’s a short term opportunity for you to save considerably on what you pay for your domain names and help a worthy cause at the same time.

Namecheap, a well known domain and hosting company that we use for our own domains, is running a special offer still available today (August 15, 2014). When you transfer your .com, .net or .org domain to Namecheap, you pay just $7.88 for the first year and use the promo code SAVEDUMBO. That’s a great bargain compared to most hosting companies.

What about after the first year? I just renewed one of my important commercial .com domains for $10.69. That’s a good price on its own. $7.88 is a steal.

So, what’s this good deed? In addition to the price break you receive, Namecheap will send $1 to Save the Elephants for each transfer.

Save the Elephants is an important organization working to secure a future for elephants on the African continent. At least 33,000 elephants are being illegally killed each year for their ivory. At this rate, they may well go extinct within our lifetime.

Is that something you want to let happen? I didn’t think so. Learn more about the work that Save the Elephants is doing to thwart poaching and trafficking in ivory and to raise awareness of this dire situation. If you are moved by this important cause, please consider making a donation of your own to Save the Elephants or some of the other important organizations working to “help an elephant.”

Don’t forget, the Namecheap special transfer offer is good today only, although you can get an excellent price on hosting and domain registrations all year long.

Update: With your help, NameCheap donated $1,256 to Save The Elephants in honor of this year's World Elephant Day. Thank you.

Use Your Technical Savvy To Save Elephants

Deep in the rainforests of Central Africa there lurks a precious beast nearing the end of its existence. Pursued by illegal hunters out to kill it for personal profit, this animal is worth far more than the ivory it carries. It is a unique species of value to both nature and humanity. When it is gone, it’s gone, and time is running out as you read this.

“But what can I do?,” you ask. “I don’t even have the skills needed for conservation work.”

Oh, but you do. In the case of the forest elephant, technology is desperately needed. Mostly, creative thinking on how to apply technology in new and creative ways.

Does this pique your interest? If so, you may be exactly the right person to figure this out. The issue is how to find out where the remaining elephants are and what they are up to. It might sound simple enough to grab a pair of binoculars and a notebook and keep track of these elephants like many other research projects have done. In this case, its not that simple. The forest elephants are few and far between and roaming deep in closed-canopy forests.

If it wasn’t enough that they are hard to find and hard to track, there is a big problem of big data. That’s right. The research going on now is generating megabytes, gigabytes and terabytes of data which is pretty much stuck on site with no quick way to get it to the researchers who need it.

One key approach to finding and tracking the forest elephants is by sound and photos. The Elephant Listening Project (ELP) has installed a network of acoustic and video sensors to detect the large beasts and record what they are up to. In more populated areas it would be a simple job to upload all this real-time data onto the Internet or private networks for transport to the research labs. But what do you do out in the middle of truly nowhere where there is no connectivity of any type?

Here are your challenges, if you choose to accept them. First, figure out a way to move massive amounts of digitized audio and video out of the dense forest and back to where it can be analyzed. I’m wondering about some combination of cellular networks, satellite or balloon-born communications, such as Google's proposed Project Loon. Can ham radio, commercial shortwave or longwave communications technology be of help? How would you power this equipment reliably under a dark canopy?

Second, figure out a way to mark individual elephants from a safe distance. What’s needed is a simple and safe way to identify each elephant without the risk of harming the elephant or getting humans trampled. Knowing what the herd is doing is very valuable. Knowing what each member of the herd is doing is even more valuable. One idea is to “tag” each elephant with infrared-visible paintballs. How could a unique pattern of markers be quickly and reliably used to track each individual?

Third, come up with a way that citizens of Central Africa can get excited about participating in this important research that affects them most of all. One idea is to develop a cellphone app that can be used to identify elephant and other animal calls from the forest. If you’ve developed iPhone or Android apps, you may be able to get something deployed quickly and easily. What other ideas can help “crowdsource” this research effort?

If you have been horrified by the stories of rapid extinction among wild animals that we’ve always taken for granted and have a creative bent, perhaps here is an opportunity to do something important. Learn more about the Elephant Listening Project and how you can submit your ideas that could make a big difference. Check out the Elephant Listening Project website and, if you have ideas already, you can contact the ELP immediately with your suggestions.


Note: Photo of African Forest Elephant courtesy of Peter H. Wrege on Wikimedia Commons.

Recycle Your Cell Phone To Save A Gorilla

There are many good reasons to recycle old cellphones, but one of the best is to save the Eastern Lowland Mountain Gorilla in the Democratic Republic of Congo.

How is it that what you do with a cell phone affects gorillas in Africa? It has to do with our fragile and tightly coupled ecosystem. Here’s what happens. Cellphones are constructed from various electronic components. One of these is a tantalum capacitor. Tantalum is a rare and valuable metal that enables once physically large capacitors to be made small enough to squeeze into those slim cell phone cases. You get tantalum from columbite tantalite, a metallic ore called Coltan for short. Eighty percent of the world’s Coltan reserves are found in Africa, with the majority of the deposits located within the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Ah, you are starting to see the connection. Here’s how the gorillas get involved. It’s illegal to mine for Coltan in the Congo, but with the material going for as much as $400 a kilogram, such mining continues on a large scale. Forests are cleared to make way for the mining and paved roads are installed. The gorillas become exposed and easy targets for bush meat hunters who sell the meat to feed miners and rebel armies in control of the area. More than half of the mountain gorilla population has been lost in just the last five years. It’s also thought that an entire population of elephants has also been wiped out in this activity.

So what we have is a situation where demand for a rare mineral has mushroomed to support the hundreds of millions of cell phones manufactured for use worldwide. High prices for Coltan have promoted the destruction of wild habitat and the killing of endangered gorillas and elephants who once enjoyed a protected environment. Is this just the price we have to pay for technology or can something be done?

Something is being done. The Jane Goodall Institute and Melbourne Zoo in Australia have joined forces to create a mobile phone recycling program called “They’re Calling on You.”You can visit the zoo to collect a postage paid recycling satchel or download and print a postage paid label to send your phone in. They’ve even got a program for corporations to donate fleets of old mobile phones. If your school would like to help, you can integrate the program into your curriculum.

They’re indeed calling on you and, if you live in Australia, you have the unique honor of being able to answer this call. But what about the rest of the world? Is there anything we can do?

Absolutely, there is. In the United States, Gazelle offers a cell phone and electronic gadgets recycling program that also includes a free mailer. This one goes beyond mobile phones to include electronic games, computers and even photography gear. They will even pay you for recent vintage equipment in good working order.

Elsewhere around the world, look for local or large scale recycling programs. But whatever you do, don’t toss that cell phone in the trash. That only compounds the problem. In addition to the damage done by creating the product in the first place, electronic components degrade in the environment and leach out toxic chemicals that can pollute the soil and water table.

The recycling programs offer a double benefit. They not only prevent damage from decaying products, they also reduce the need for mining and manufacturing by refurbishing the old phones for use in disadvantaged communities. Devices too old or not functional can be ground up by reclaimers to recycle the minerals to make new phones.

Listen! They’re really calling you... and it’s a very important call!

Note: Photo of gorilla courtesy of Wikimedia Commons