[kictanet] Fwd: [DigAfrica] CyberTrackers of the Kalahari take out their PDAs in Botswana

Mon Jul 30 20:13:03 EAT 2007

I thought I might want to share this with you... (KWS wanafanya nini?)

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: yamanjanl <yamanjanl at yahoo.com>
Date: 15-Jul-2007 17:58
Subject: [DigAfrica] CyberTrackers of the Kalahari take out their PDAs in
Botswana
To: DigAfrica at yahoogroups.com

That indispensable electronic tool of every rising young executive,
the personal digital assistant (PDA), has been matched to the
traditional knowledge of the Bushmen of the Kalahari Desert to give
Africa a new profession: digital wildlife tracker.

The high-tech wildlife trackers have been used against poachers, in
ecotourism, environmental education, research and monitoring. The
free software that links up traditional knowledge to electronic data
mapping has been applied around the world to social surveys, organic
farming, integrated pest management and disaster relief.

The new profession sprang from the work of Louis Liebenberg, a South
African conservation scientist who learned tracking from bow-and-
arrow hunters in Botswana. He recognized the importance of their
skills and knowledge for conservation — and how little it was valued
by protection authorities, partly because the Bushmen could not read
or write.

With former University of Cape Town computer scientist Justin
Steventon, Liebenberg developed a hand-held computer and software to
capture their knowledge. He called the system CyberTracker. The
computer displays a palette of symbols representing more than 40
animal species, subspecies and plants. The icons also cover
activities such as drinking, feeding, running, fighting, mating and
sleeping. Pressing an icon records a sighting or other indications.
Each screen allows the user to record increasingly detailed
information. They found that one tracker might record up to 300
observations in a day.

Connected to a satellite navigational system in 1996, the hand-held
computer automatically recorded the details, time, date and exact
location. This information was processed on a base-station computer
to create maps and charts of animal movements and feeding habits.
Today, all the data collection can be done on a PDA and worked on a
personal computer. The free software used to turn a tracker into a
digital wildlife tracker has now been downloaded over 25,000 times in
more than 50 countries.

When Liebenberg received a Rolex Award for Enterprise for his work
with CyberTracker, the European Union funded work that enabled him to
set up a non-governmental organization to develop and distribute the
software as part of his effort to establish a worldwide network to
monitor wildlife (http://www.cybertracker.org). Mr Liebenberg's plan
was to hand over management to someone else and go back to research
exclusively, but so far that remains a dream, and he now also spends
time evaluating trackers for certification.

The scientist's efforts had a social development goal from the
start. "I set out to show that there is an alternative for the
desperately downtrodden and impoverished Bushmen whose understanding
of nature and its rhythms is unparalleled," he says. The illiterate
trackers who carried out the first project, a detailed study of the
black rhinoceros, were able to publish their findings in a respected
scientific journal with the aid of Liebenberg and Steventon.

Certified trackers now run into the hundreds. Liebenberg runs tracker
certificate programmes in South Africa at the Thorny Bush Nature
Reserve, a private reserve adjacent to the Kruger National Park, and
the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park. Others are now also organized in
the United States.
(Source: International Trade Centre)

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