Technology is useful, but drones alone won't save Africa's elephants

February 18, 2019 by Ross Harvey, The Conversation

Technology has made a tremendous difference in the world, in areas as diverse as health and education, and pretty much everything in between.

But is technology the weapon that will ultimately eradicate animal poaching and save various species from eradication? It's not a silver bullet, but it certainly has potential. That's why Vulcan – a company started by the late Paul Allen, who co-founded Microsoft – has produced a tech platform called EarthRanger to monitor protected wildlife areas by drawing in big data from cameras, animal collars and vehicle sensors. Other platforms such as SMART – a spatial monitoring and reporting tool – have also started to gain traction and operate in similar ways to EarthRanger.

Vulcan is known in the conservation world for sponsoring the Great Elephant Census. The census revealed that there are probably fewer than 400 000 savannah elephants left in the wild across Africa. It also revealed a decline of 8% a year between 2007 and 2014, largely due to poaching, either to supply the illegal ivory trade or the bushmeat trade.

A census is useful because it provides a snapshot in time and highlights the urgency of the problem. Elephants are a keystone species, environmental engineers who play irreplaceable roles in maintaining ecological integrity. They're also incredibly intelligent. Losing them is not an option. But we need more than occasional snapshots to aid conservation efforts.

New technologies, however—as a step beyond census counting—are merely a tool. Their efficacy ultimately depends on the value to the end user. A sound overarching vision and buy-in from users on the ground is also critical. At present, data collection and analysis practices vary from site to site. Without best-practice standards in this respect, all the cleverly collected data in the world may make little difference.

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