This week on PeaceParks.TV, we visit the Simalaha Community Conservancy in Zambia, where the Simalaha Smart Park Project is in full swing.
Funded by the German Postcode Lottery, the project includes various components that promote peaceful human-wildlife coexistence through smart technologies.
Through the project, Peace Parks has supported the collaring of elephants to trace their movements across corridors and prevent conflict with surrounding communities, as well as the development of a human-wildlife coexistence plan for the park.
“It has been quite a lovely adventure to go on. We had to go and visit all these ten village action groups, interact with each of the communities and understand the types of human-wildlife conflict they’re experiencing, what causes it and what would be the best way for each of these communities to respond,” says Peace Parks’ Combatting Wildlife Crime Project Manager, Collete Terblanche.
The project supports the human-wildlife coexistence plan by installing technologies that help deter animals from entering residential areas.
Three people have been trained to lead operations rooms at Simalaha headquarters. The ops room uses EarthRanger, a platform that collects and integrates real-time data from various sources to help manage the park more effectively and make better-informed decisions.
“Through EarthRanger, we have also provided each of the community scouts with a mobile phone that has EarthRanger Mobile, which we have adapted specifically to Simalaha so the scouts can identify and record incidents,” Collette says.
Previously, Simalaha had no radio network. As part of the project, three 36-meter towers have been erected to enable real-time communication. One of the towers is located at a rural school in Adonsi, providing it with free Wi-Fi access.
Funded by the German Postcode Lottery, this Smart Park project is led by the Simalaha Community Conservancy and Zambia’s Department of National Parks and Wildlife (DNPW), with support from Peace Parks Foundation.
Stay tuned to PeaceParks.TV for more on-the-ground updates.
