LINK TO FULL PAPER:
https://drive.google.com/file/
Authors:
Dipto Sarkar, Department of Geography, McGill University; Colin A. Chapman, Department of Anthropology, McGill University; Wilson Kagoro, Uganda Wildlife Authority; Raja Sengupta, Department of Geography, McGill University
Key Messages:
This paper explores whether traditional crisis mapping systems can be used to tackle the perennial livelihood problem of elephant raiding around Kibale National Park, Uganda.
The goal of the system described in this paper is to streamline the process of reporting elephant raiding to forest officials so that park services can be effectively deployed.
The challenges and considerations of deploying such a system in an environment where ICT resources are sparse are described.
Dwindling animal habitat and burgeoning human settlements have made managing human-animal conflict a critical problem in conservation of protected areas, particularly in the biodiversity-rich tropics. In this paper, we present a system aimed at leveraging public participation from affected communities to help effectively manage the conflict in both the short and long term. However, deploying a system that depends on volunteered information has its challenges in the unique settings of a national park where Information Communication Technologies infrastructure is sparse. The specific requirements of the system being easy to use and having automatic geocoding, coupled with the lack of internet access, made it impossible to deploy traditional crisis mapping software such as Ushahidi. We highlight the unique challenges of deploying a system that relies on volunteered information for managing human-animal conflict in a technology resource sparse environment and how the challenges were surpassed. Our system aims at streamlining the process of reporting cases of elephant raiding to the forest officials so as to elicit quick support. The long-term aim is to use the data collected through the system for spatio-temporal analysis to better understand elephant raiding patterns so that the parks services can be effectively deployed.
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La perte de l’habitat faunique et l’expansion des e tablissements humains aggravent les enjeux de gestion des conflits entre les humains et les animaux pour la sauvegarde des aires prote ge es, notamment en zone tropicale de forte biodiversite . Dans cet article, nous pre sentons un syste me visant a tirer parti de la participation du public provenant des communaute s touche es afin d’e laborer un mode de gestion plus efficace du conflit a court et a long terme. Cependant, l’exploitation d’un syste me qui de pend d’informations fournies sur une base volontaire soule ve des de fis dans le contexte particulier d’un parc national disposant de peu d’infrastructures en technologies de l’information et de la communication. Conside rant que le syste me recherche devait e^tre convivial et permettre le ge ocodage automatique, et que l’Internet n’e tait pas disponible, les logiciels traditionnels de cartographie des crises tels que Ushahidi ne pouvaient pas e^tre utilise s. Nous soulignons les de fis a relever dans l’exploitation d’un syste me reposant sur des informations fournies sur une base volontaire pour assurer la gestion des conflits entre les humains et les animaux dans un contexte marque par la pe nurie de ressources technologiques, et la manie re dont ces de fis ont e te surmonte s. Notre syste me vise a simplifier le processus de de claration des incidents de braconnage d’e le phant aux agents forestiers en vue d’obtenir un soutien rapide. L’objectif a long terme est d’utiliser les donne es recueillies par le syste me d’analyse spatio-temporelle pour mieux comprendre les profils de braconnage d’e le phant, permettant ainsi aux directions des parcs de re aliser leur plein potentiel.