How tech is improving wildlife conservation

Ann Wambui, a conservation officer at Mugie, says if you click the lion icons, for instance, you can tell where the lion moved at a certain period of time, filter movement for a certain period of time and find out where the lion regularly frequents.

“If you see someone standing, these are rangers on live patrol, and you can differentiate whether it’s a geo fence patrol or an internal patrol.”

“Knowing where the lion prides are is of great help as this will help mitigate human-wildlife conflicts. Esmi loves predating on livestock so anytime we see her location is near the headers and livestock, the rangers in the control room raise alarm to those on the ground to take care or move the cattle elsewhere.”

Gabi’s pride has 18 lions, while Esmy walks with her two sub-adult cubs.

Because of drought, Gabi’s pride tends to get outside the conservancy. But with collar monitoring, Wambui’s team can alert members of the community that the pride is in the vicinity to take precautions, hence reducing human-wildlife conflicts.

With the use of collars, it’s easy to convince the KWS of the trouble of human-wildlife conflict. They need data, so with collars, you can show the need for more collars.

“From a tourism perspective, you don’t have to spend all your time looking for a lion. At least I know the direction the pride is. So if you have tourists, you can easily spot where the lions are so you save time and resources and make the safari a memorable experience.”

As they patrol the 49,000-acre conservancy, the rangers feed data on the activities of animals, human interactions, animals sighted and location. At the end of the day, they send reports, which reflect on a software on a computer in the control room, where someone else will later do analysis.

Wambui says being able to know where the rangers are helps people to be keen on their work.

“When we didn’t have this, rangers could be tempted to get out of their duties and do their own things,” she says.

“But with the app, they know what to do and we can see where they are. If you need anything done somewhere, there is no need to send someone from the office. You just locate who is nearby from the interface and reach out to them.”

Inside a control room, two rangers, Mary Lokia and Jackson Lowolo, monitor their colleagues in the field from a huge television screen.

The two are part of 86 rangers helping conserve wildlife in Mugie conservancy, Laikipia, Northern Kenya.

The screen projects most of the activities and information in the wild where rangers are deployed, helping management deal with issues as they arise.

Conservationists believe exploring the use of technology will help fill gaps in wildlife conservation and improve numbers.

Mugie is home to variety of wildlife, including Grevy’s zebra, Jackson’s hartebeest, big cats, buffalos, elephants, reticulated giraffe, storks, antelopes and birds of prey.

The conservancy borders Baringo and Samburu counties, where nomadic herders have long battled conservancies over pasture and water for their cattle.

Invasions by armed herders in some conservancies in Laikipia have led to death and injuries to police officers, community members and conservancy owners.

At the height of the conflicts, the government launched an operation to flush out illegal herders in Laikipia early this year.

 The conflicts and poaching have posed challenge to wildlife in the region, which players describe as one of the most important wildlife areas in Kenya.

The rangers at Mugie have mobile phones that have the Spacial Monitoring and Research Tool (Smart) app, which helps them collect data on wildlife sightings, snares, cases of illegal grazing, habitat interference and animal carcasses.

The screen installed at Mugie headquarters displays icons on position of radio handsets, phone with Smart, cattle, animals and vehicles.

The interface also displays shows position of two collared lions: Gabi and Esmi.

EASIER PATROLS

Francis Ekiteela is a ranger deployed at fence patrols. Along the fence, there are wildlife corridors that have camera traps that capture animal crossings.

Information on the corridors helps to know the kind of species that use specific routes. It’s at the corridors where Ekiteela collects data on illegal invasions, helping management know areas prone to trespassing and illegal grazing.

“Poachers now know we have good communication and they are likely to be found out easily because with radios and the app, reporting incidents is fast. Unlike in the past, when they used to despise our presence,” Ekiteela says.

He says he is motivated to work with the mobile phone app as opposed to carrying notebooks and other old-fashioned tools.

When there is a case of predation by lions in the community, for instance, rangers on the ground take data on what animal was predated on, what species was involved, the severity, action taken and the location. Once the info is uploaded, the management sends teams there for action.

John Elain is part of rangers who do internal patrols. He hails use of apps as a game-changer in ranger duties.

“The app will show me the area I have not covered in my patrols so I can’t repeat the same place. We used to have notebooks but many of us don’t know how to write, so it was a challenge. But with mobile app training, we are enjoying our patrols,” Elain says.

The management is currently upgrading to a more advanced mobile app called Earthranger, which sends data to the control room in real time and has automated reports, unlike Smart, where collected data has to be analysed by someone on a weekly basis using a different software.

Information collected using the app can be shared with any other Earthranger at the click of a button.

The platform is a data visual and analysis software that, together with accompanying technologies and infrastructure, gives conservationists the real-time information they need to keep wildlife, habitats and communities safe.

It collects, integrates and displays all historical and available data and combines it with reports from the field to provide one unified view of collared wildlife, rangers, enforcement, assets and infrastructure within protected areas. 

Currently, the rangers have 16 phones with the apps and 36 radios across the conservancy.

“If you need data for two years ago, you can find it easily without asking rangers. All you need is to run an analysis,” Wambui says.

Josh Perrett, general manager of Mugie, says the world needs green spaces, which are shrinking and need joint efforts to keep them alive.

GROWING IMPACT

Space for Giants is a conservation NGO that initiates technology aspects to conservancies who then drive the initiatives.

Its conservation monitoring coordinator Horris Wanyama says seven years ago, data collection was purely manual, not of quality and riddled with errors. Moreover, each conservancy had its own way of collecting data.

“There was need for a consolidated, standardised way of collecting data, where everyone would be subscribing to one way of collecting data before sending to a central system like Kenya Wildlife Service or any other relevant authorised agency,” he says.

In 2017, the NGO implemented the first version of Smart at Loisaba Conservancy. In 2018, Smart was improved to Smart Connect, which allowed rangers to collect data and upload it on the cloud from the wild.

More conservancies gained interest in the digitised data collection. 

The NGO has currently trained more than 630 rangers and administrators and has 22 conservancies, both private and community-owned, that use Smart and Earthranger apps in Laikipia.

Space for Giants works across Africa’s landscapes to unlock the full value of nature by protecting biodiversity and remaining populations of megafauna, while expanding economic, cultural and social value for local communities and national governments.

“We are now in the process of creating a centralised hub, which will host data from every conservancy in Laikipia and Isiolo,” Wanyama says.

EarthRanger director Jes Lefcourt says EarthRanger was initially developed as an anti-poaching tool inspired by the results of the 2016 Great Elephant Census, the first pan-African census in more than 40 years.

It sought to answer to challenges of lack of actionable data and analysis and lack of real-time alerting, which meant actions were reactive and often ineffective responses to immediate threats. 

“We’re very proud that our work aids conservationists in their missions to protect and save wildlife and their habitats,” he said via email interview.

“Technologies like EarthRanger are important tools, but ultimately it’s the people like Space for Giants and the conservancies with whom they work that are on the ground, making a real difference.”

Kenya’s national wildlife census 2021 report found that elephants, lions and cheetahs are endangered, while black rhino, Hirola and Roan antelope are critically endangered.