New Alarm System May Stop Poachers In Their Tracks

When you’ve heard a shot, it’s already too late. In all
likelihood the rhino is dead, and the best outcome is that the
poacher is found and arrested.

But now a potent new weapon has been added to the anti-poaching
arsenal, helping rangers get ahead of disaster. It’s an integrated
system called Connected Conservation, and it uses a combination of
technologies—WiFi, thermal cameras, scanners, closed-circuit
televisions, and sensors—to provide early warnings about suspicious
activity. Rangers can deploy as soon as the perimeter of a
protected area is breached and intercept intruders faster and with
less risk to life and limb.

Connected Conservation is a collaboration between two
international technology companies, Dimension Data, headquartered
in Johannesburg, South Africa, and Cisco, based in San Jose,
California.

Think of it as a souped-up home burglar alarm that covers a huge
area and must function without faltering under harsh conditions
such as lightning strikes, heavy rains, and baking
temperatures.

The prototype has proved its mettle in a 135,000-acre private
game reserve adjacent to South Africa’s Kruger National Park, where
from 2013 through 2015—the three years before the system was
installed—roughly 70 rhinos were killed for their horns. (For
security reasons, Wildlife Watch has been asked not to name the
reserve.)

According to Dimension Data’s Bruce “Doc” Watson, the driving
force behind the system, no rhinos were poached throughout 2017,
and none have been killed so far this year.

“We’ve moved out of crisis management,” says David Powrie, the
reserve’s chief warden.

The reserve, whose perimeter is partly fenced and partly open to
allow movement of animals into Kruger, has a high concentration of
wildlife: almost 150 mammal species—including elephants, buffalo,
lions, and leopards, as well as rhinos—more than a hundred species
of reptiles, and 500 of birds.

The first phase of Connected Conservation, begun in November
2015, involved setting up a wireless network that allows rangers to
share information instantaneously, cameras that constantly monitor
the reserve’s perimeter and gates, and scanners to record
fingerprints and digitize information, such as passports and
vehicle registrations, for everyone entering or leaving the
reserve. Operations managers and technicians in an on-site command
center sift through the information and use it, for example, to
coordinate and direct anti-poaching teams.

Technology and the African bush usually don’t go hand in hand,
Powrie says. “Between the topography, lightning, and other hazards,
communications are a massive challenge.” On top of withstanding
what nature throws at it, the system has to be able to distinguish
between animals and people moving around the reserve.

Incursions by poachers climbing over the fence or cutting it
have fallen dramatically. Before Connected Conservation, says Dave
Varty, a member of the reserve’s security committee, “we had an
incursion every second night.” Now there are almost none. “Both the
perception and the reality is that we’re a difficult place to get
into, and we should be avoided.” Word is going out: “This is a safe
haven.”

The moment any part of the reserve’s fence is cut or breached,
an alert sounds. That, Watson says, “gives rangers more time and
more opportunity to catch the poachers prior to a killing.” The
early warnings have reduced reaction times from 30 minutes to 7,
according to Watson.

During anti-poaching operations, rangers react more nimbly and
more strategically. As information comes in, the command center
relays it to the field, and teams can be redirected according to
changing circumstances.

Knowing more about conditions on the ground also makes the
rangers’ work safer. Because the system tracks ranger positions
even in the dark of night, teams avoid so-called blue-on-blue
situations when good guys mistakenly fire on each other.

“Rangers also know they can get help if they’re hurt or in
trouble,” Powrie says. That helps with both safety and morale. “If
someone is shot, or attacked by an animal, they won’t be stuck
waiting in the bush.”

There’s another important benefit too. Continuous, comprehensive
monitoring of the reserve makes it less likely that bad guys will
bribe members of the staff to give them operational or other inside
information.

“At any point in time there are a lot of systems in the bush
that will pick things up and see that ‘naughty’ person,” Powrie
says. “Helicopters with eyes, camera traps—all these layers mean
that at the end of the day poachers and collaborators can’t
escape.”

Watson anticipates that the second phase of Connected
Conservation will be completed by the end of June. This involves
expanding the ability of the wireless system to allow longer-range
communications and overcome other limitations, burying magnetic
sensors to pick up movements inside the reserve, equipping vehicles
with sensors to track their whereabouts, and laying acoustic fiber
lines around the perimeter that set off alarms when crossed.

He emphasizes that the success of the system comes not from any
single component but the integrated functioning of all its parts.
“It’s the whole solution put together.”

The goal now, he adds, is “to get a replicable model. We’ve had
a number of requests. A lot of private reserves and national parks
would like this system.”

A variation of Connected Conservation has already been deployed
in part of a national park in central Zambia to help safeguard
elephants and prevent the killing of animals such as antelope for
bush meat and the death or maiming of unintended targets like lions
that end up caught in snares. “We hope to extend [it] and spread
our solution in phases across the entire national park,” Watson
says.

Reserves in Kenya and Mozambique are next, along with areas in
India and elsewhere in Asia that hold tigers. The big cats are in
dire need of better protection from the black market trade in their
body parts, mainly to China, for use as traditional medicine to
treat everything from malaria to acne.

Beyond that, the goal is to adapt the land-based system for use
in the seas to protect rays, sharks, and whales, among other
species.

“Our intention,” Watson, says, is nothing if not ambitious: “to
eradicate all forms of poaching throughout Africa, India, and
Asia—and the ocean.”