Few people will argue that protected areas – parks, nature reserves and other natural areas – are essential for biodiversity conservation. They assist in reducing deforestation, habitat and species loss, and support the livelihoods of over a billion people, while, according to IUCN’s latest report on the state of protected areas, containing 15% of the world’s carbon stock.  The same report shows how organisations and governments are working hard to secure more of it: in the last 20 years global coverage of areas has increased from 8.8% to 12.7% for terrestrial areas, and from 0.9% to 4% for marine areas.

However important formal protected areas are, it’s also undeniable that securing land for conservation via formal proclamation is not going to be enough for us to achieve our biodiversity goals. In South Africa’s Western Cape, for example, most of the province’s biodiversity lies within private ownership, and it is unrealistic that this land might be purchased by the state for conversion to Protected Areas.

For this reason, many national and provincial authorities have taken to “mainstreaming” biodiversity conservation by involving private landowners through stewardship initiatives, biodiversity agreements and other incentive-based or voluntary programmes.

These areas, the conservation efforts on them, and their overall contribution to the biodiversity estate are, however, not always all that well known by the general public. Needless to say, we at MAPA are thrilled to be involved in an initiative to help change this by making private conservation land, and conservation efforts on them, more visible and accessible with the help of free online geo tools.

Together with Conservation at Work, the umbrella body for conservation on private land in the Western Cape, we have put together a few resources specifically geared towards individuals conservancy members, stewardship site managers and other individuals active in conservation on private conservation areas:

• On the 7th and 8th of February 2013, we will be running one of our popular Google Geo workshops at the University of Cape Town. This (free) workshop will be specifically tailored for the private conservation sector, and will teach highly practical tools for mapping, visualizing and sharing information about conservation efforts on private land. No prior programming or GIS experience is required!  To find out more and apply, visit http://geoforprivateconservation.mapatraining.org. Applications close 15 December 2012!

• In conjunction with this opportunity, we are also making available a mapping toolkit.

The “Tools for mapping conservation on private land” website comprises a collection of online mapping resources to help you map your conservation efforts and areas, visualize problems and successes on private land, and communicate these maps and visualizations to colleagues, stakeholders, or the world.

On the site, you can learn how to add your project to MAPA’s registry of African conservation, how to create a shareable map for your projects, how to add your private protected land to Google Maps using Google Map Maker, how to communicate and visualise conservation with free online tools like Google Earth, Google Maps and Fusion Tables, and about upcoming in-person training on Geo Tools.

Whether you run a private game reserve, are an active conservancy member, or run a research project on a stewardship site, we hope you will help these resources helpful! We will be adding more articles and links to the site in the near future – please let us know what you would like to see on this site, and help us help you make conservation on private land more visible and accessible.

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Municipalities play a significant role in biodiversity conservation in South Africa. Not only are they tasked to provide a safe and healthy environment for their residents, they also have to manage land for development and look after threatened ecosystems and wildlife within their boundaries.

To inform these high-stake decisions, municipal authorities, as well as the interested parties they serve, need to have access to good information about biodiversity and sensitive areas in their municipal area.

Recognising how important availability to this information is, scientists from South Africa’s Department of Environmental Affairs (DEA) and the South African National Biodiversity Institute (SANBI), have put together municipal biodiversity summaries for every municipality in South Africa. The biodiversity summaries contain statistics for biodiversity features and terrestrial biodiversity summary maps, all downloadable as shapefiles, as well as a series of fact sheets about the projects.

These information pages have been available on BGIS (SANBI’s distribution catalogue for spatial biodiversity data) since 2010, and now, as of this week, this entire dataset can also be accessed on MAPA’s registry of African conservation.

Simply search for [your municipality BGIS] (e.g. [Ngqushwa BGIS])  to find the link to biodiversity information for your municipality, and click on “read more” to access the project page for that municipality.

Remember that, by clicking on the share button, you can also access a URL link to the results of any search, embed it in a webpage, or download it for viewing in Google Earth or as a PDF.

We are very excited about our developing relationship with SANBI, and hope that this will be the first of many collaborations in which MAPA can help to make relevant conservation information more visible and accessible.

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This week the world has water on its mind, as scientists and policy makers from all over the globe convene in Stockholm to discuss water and food security. Earlier this year, between February and July, a much smaller delegation made up of only two young South Africans (Alex Antrobus and Murray Beaumont) and their bicycles, pondered similar issues as they cycled more than 7000km through sub-Saharan Africa to raise money and awareness for clean drinking water.

Travelling through Africa overland can be challenging at the best of times, even in a motor vehicle that offer shelter from headwinds, thunderstorms and Africa’s scariest animal (the Tsetse fly, in case you had a mammalian carnivore in mind!). However, one perk of choosing muscle power over diesel, aside from its climate friendliness and fitness benefits, is that it offers the opportunity to go slower, and to see way more.

During their travels, Alex and Murray did see more. They saw more than just beautiful African landscapes, the odd curio stop, and interesting African people. They saw African environments, cultures and context. And now they would like to share their encounters with African conservation – parks, people, practitioners, with you.

Credit and Copyright: Amazi Awethu

For the next three months or so, Amanzi Awethu will use MAPA’s registry of African conservation to relive, and retell their journey through a conservation lense. They will be updating and uploading parks and projects they travelled through and came into contact with as they made their way through South Africa, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Malawi, Tanzania, Rwanda, Uganda and Kenya, and will be sharing some of their stories with you while they do so.

If you missed their journey the first time around, you can follow this virtual sojourn on this blog, as well as on our Twitter, Google+ and Facebook pages. If you can’t wait that long, you can read all about their journey on the Amazi Awethu! blog, as well as on their Facebook page. We can’t wait to start this ride!

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As much as it is a pleasure to run trainings in other parts of our beautiful continent, it’s just as special being able to connect with conservationists here at home (which just happens to be a pretty important place for conservationists to be).

Two weeks ago, we had the privilege to do just that, as we showed 45 practitioners from non-profit and for-profit organisations, academia and the government how to use Google’s Geo Tools to communicate information and improve operations. Having run these workshops in the winelands and in the shadow of Devil’s Peak previously, we figured that it was the Cape Flats’ turn this time. Accordingly, we set up shop on the 5th floor of the University of the Western Cape’s state-of-the-art New Life Science building.

Full house on the first day of our training in the BCB departments’ 5th floor training room

One of the biggest reasons we love running Google Geo tool trainings is that we get to learn so much about what conservationists actually do on the ground, and how we can assist them with tools to communicate their efforts.  At this workshop we again saw the pressing need for practitioners to quickly and easily be able to visualise information to the public, stakeholders and colleagues, and we were delighted to see how quickly participants capitalised on the tools we were teaching them to do just that.

One example of this is PhD student Nicola Okes, who put together a crowd-sourcing application using Google Forms & Fusion Tables: anyone that has seen an otter, dead (red) or alive (yellow) on the Cape Peninsula can go to her website and contribute their finding, which will immediately display on a sightings map.

This workshop was also really special for a number of other reasons. For one, it was the most extensive one we had ever attempted. After “basic training” in Google Earth, Google Maps and Fusion Tables, participants could customise a training most suitable to their needs, choosing from sessions on Google Earth Tours, Open Data Kit, GIS & Google Earth, GPS in Google Earth, Google Maps API, Google Map Maker and Google Maps Engine.

March enthusiastically explains touring to a participant during one of the tea breaks

It was particularly exciting for us to be able to offer the latter two tools. Google Map Maker had only just become available in South Africa, so it was a real privilege to have Google’s Evans Arabu on hand to show participants how to put the places they care about on the map. Similarly, we loved that we were able to share the incredible geospatial capabilities of Google Maps Engine, a tool that is only just becoming available to nonprofits globally.

But perhaps the most outstanding thing for us about this workshop, from a personal point of view, was that it represented one further step in what we hope will be an ongoing and developing relationship with institutions  like SANBI and the University of the Western Cape. This training was a truly collaborative venture and we owe a really big debt of gratitude to the staff of the Biodiversity & Conservation Biology department at UWC. In particular, we’d like to thank Dr Richard Knight, Martin Cocks and Audrey King without whom we would definitely not have been able to pull this off.   We  hope that we can do this again sometime…

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In the last three months we’ve been learning more about Zimbabwean conservation, released a brand new user-interface for finding and adding conservation projects , and have started to prepare for an exciting new workshop in Cape Town.  Here is our latest newsletter:

A brand new project user-interface and search page

One of our main jobs is to build a catalogue and map of Africa’s conservation projects. How well we achieve that almost entirely depends on how many conservationists use our website to add their work, which in turn largely depends on how easy it is for them to use it.

After quite a few iterations of just-not-quite-getting it right, we were excited to announce the release of a much cleaner and simpler new user-interface in March.  But don’t take our word for it – try it out yourself! Head over to mapa.maproject.org to search the database for protected areas, critical habitats, and of course, contributed conservation projects from across the continent. Then map your search in Google Earth!

Can’t find your project in the database? Add it! Simply register as a user, login, and fill in your projects’ details. As soon as you choose to make it live, others will be able to find it in the database, and see it on our Google Earth conservation map.

We hope that you’ll enjoy using this new system – as always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and criticisms!

Zimbabwe Drive

At the end of March, with the help of our friends at Africa Geographic & Tracks4Africa, we embarked on a two month mission to get Zimbabwean conservation on the map – a drive that saw us connect with over a  hundred of the country’s most prominent and dedicated conservationists. During that time, we got to learn a little more about the projects these men and women work at, which include  environmental advocacy in the Zambezi valley, the research,  conservation and welfare of large carnivores,  on-the ground logistical support for Zimbabwe’s parks authorities and sustainable development through agricultural research and public-private partnerships – to name but a few.

Many of these Zimbabwean initiatives have already been added to our conservation map, and a few more will be live soon. Look out for that, a report back on the drive, and an exciting partnership with the Green Zambezi Alliance, in the six weeks.

Our Zimbabwean education wasn’t all “distance learning”, though! At the beginning of May, we also had the opportunity to travel up to Harare to meet a small group of Zimbabwean conservationists in person for a three day workshop on how to use Google’s mapping tools in their work, and how to use MAPA’s conservation mapping tool for their own benefit. This blog post has more.

Google Map Maker & Google Map Engine at our Cape Town training

Fresh of our mapping workshop at Mapumula in May, we announced another Google Geo Workshop for June, this time in Cape Town,  at UWC’s brand new Life Science building.

What’s particularly exciting about this training is that it will introduce two tools that are only just becoming available to South Africans, and nonprofits.

Google Map Maker, the tool that allows you to add the points of interests you care about to Google Maps, was launched South Africa just over a week ago. We’re so excited that Evans Arabu from the Google Map Maker team will be joining us at this workshop to show environmentalists how to give parks, reserves, landscape features and those obscure study sites nobody has ever heard of, their rightful and correct place on the map!

Another relatively new Google Geo Tool that will feature at the workshop is Google Maps Engine, a revolutionary geospatial tool that allows organisations to manage their data in the cloud and easily make and share maps using Google Earth, Maps and Android phones. Globally, it’s already being successfully utilised by organisations like World Wildlife Fund, Eyes on the Forest and the Living Oceans Society to manage and publish critical environmental data,  and we look forward to giving our workshop participants a first glance at how this technology can be leveraged for their own organisations.
The Overberg district municipality’s wetlands & critical biodiversity areas, mapped using Google Maps Engine (data downloaded from BGIS: http://bgis.sanbi.org, copyright C.A.P.E)

That’s it for this quarter’s newsletter! We look forward to sharing more conservation stories, tools, and of course, maps, with you in the next three months!

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Over the last couple of months we’ve been putting a lot focus on building a catalogue and map of Zimbabwean conservation efforts.  Whereas this drive is, in part, an attempt to organise and document information that may be useful to others, it’s aim is equally to communicate stories and efforts in a way that may promote understanding and inspire action.

One way MAPA works more broadly to achieve the latter goal is by running trainings to equip the people who are best placed to communicate these efforts and issues – conservationists themselves – with the tools to do so. It was for one such training, as well as to connect with the Zimbabwean conservationists we had been speaking to, that we found ourselves at Mapumula Lodge just outside Harare at the beginning of May.

Prior to arriving at our rustic training venue we were a little worried about internet connectivity and power cuts, but our hosts had worked hard to make sure that those fears were quickly dispelled. Between the smooth technical experience and the late-autumn sun, bushveld-air, home-cooked catering and twenty dedicated and enthusiastic participants this was easily one of our most enjoyable workshops to date!

After two intensive hands-on days of learning how to use Google Earth, Google Maps, Fusion Tables and the Open Data Kit, our participants had the opportunity on the third workshop day to apply their new skills to their own projects. Prior to the workshop, many of them had never used some of these tools, so we were extra impressed to see the projects that participants chose to work on. These included mapping schools and cattle dip-tanks with Fusion Tables, a Google Earth tour of points of interest on a private conservancy, and two applications using Google Forms & Fusion Tables to create a crowd-sourced map.

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Zimbabwe – not only did we have the pleasure of meeting a group of extremely dedicated conservationists, we also had the privilege of travelling back to South Africa via the wild open spaces of the beautiful Gonarezhou National Park. We are so grateful to all the Zimbabweans who welcomed us into their conservation lives and helped to make this workshop specifically, and the (still ongoing) conservation drive more generally, a success.

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Through our searchable online database and Google Earth map, the MAPA Project hopes to make African conservation more visible and accessible.  Over the last couple of years, we’ve coupled the development of our platform with hands-on workshops in which we further equip scientists and practitioners in the environmental sector with freely available and easy to use tools for communicating, visualising and mapping their conservation work.

Hot on the heels of our recent Google Geo Tool workshop in Zimbabwe (look out for a report back on that early next week!), we’re excited to announce that we’ll be bringing another Google Geo Tool workshop to Cape Town,  It will run from the 25^th to the 27^th of June 2012.

This time we’re teaming up with the University of the Western Cape’s Biodiversity & Conservation Biology department. The course will be run from their new, state-of-the-art computer training facility (pictured below), located in the swanky New Life Science building on UWC’s Bellville campus.

As with all our workshops, our workshops are designed for conservation practitioners of all levels of qualifications and assume no programming or GIS skills. You don’t need to be a GIS boffin or tech wiz to attend!

At the training we will show you how to get the most out of Google Mapping tools (particularly Google Earth, Google Maps and Fusion Tables) to support decision making, increase public awareness, and create maps for your conservation project or organisation. We also hope to use this event to show you how you can use the MAPA Project’s conservation map and searchable database, to showcase your work.

Applications will remain open until the 15^th of June. We will be accepting successful applicants in on a rolling basis, so apply early to avoid disappointment!

Here are the important details again:

• What? Using Google Geo Tools in Conservation: Cape Town 2012
• When? 25-27 June 2012, 8:30 – 17:00
• Where? 5th Floor, New Life Sciences Building, University of the Western Cape Campus
• Application & more information: https://sites.google.com/site/mapacapegw2012/

Hope to see you in June!

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This post is the second in our series featuring Zimbabwean Conservation projects and organisations. This time round, we visit a recently completed project in the beautiful Matobo hills.

The Matopos or Matobo Hills, owes its name (meaning “bald heads”) to the granite kopjes that characterise this unique landscape. The hills cover about 3100 km² and is deemed extremely important culturally (it was declared a UNESCO world heritage site in 2003) as well as ecologically (it hosts over 200 species of trees and the world’s largest concentration of black eagles, to name a few).

But it’s not only a site of rock art, trees and birds – the kopjes and wooded valleys offer prime leopard habitat. Although these carnivores have long been known to occur here, until recently nobody really had any handle on the size of the population, their habitat preferences or movement patterns.

Tanith Grant’s project attempted (and succeeded) in addressing these gaps. Over three years, with the help of trained members of the local community, she collected information using telemetry, camera traps and other census techniques that ultimately enabled her to come up with the first population estimate of the predators in the Mangwe area.

This information, together with her spatial movement data, now allow the Zimbabwean Parks and Wildlife authority (ZPWA) to devise and implement better management strategies for the sustainable conservation of a top predator that is both ecologically and economically valuable and affecting.

Photos: Tanith Grant

You can find Tanith’s project on MAPA’s conservation layer for Google Earth. Click here to download the KML file and then double click on the downloaded file to open it in your “Places” panel in Google Earth. Search for “Mangwe Leopard Project” (like in the screenshot below) to find this project (remember that you can add your own project to this map!).

Also be sure to check out Rhodes University’s Wildlife and Reserve Management Research Groups’ website to learn more about some of the other research this group is involved in.

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We’re now into the third week of our drive to create a registry of Zimbabwean conservation projects.  As we pick up speed in the buildup to our visit to Harare, we’d like to share with you, in the next fortnight, some of the great work being done by conservation organisations and institutions in Zimbabwe.

The first of these featured organisations is the Centre de coopération Internationale en Recherche Agronomique pour le Développement (Cirad). Cirad is a French research agency that has been conducting applied agricultural research for over twenty years in  Zimbabwe.  Since 2007, Cirad with three other institutions, namely University of Zimbabwe, the National University of Science and Technology (NUST), and CNRS (another French-based research agency), have embarked on a research platform called “Production and Conservation in Partnership” (RP-PCP).

The objective of the platform is to address human-nature conflicts in the periphery of protected areas, including TFCAs.  Research themes addressed are community based natural resource management, agriculture and conservation, functional ecology and animal health and environment.  The RP-PCP with the support of the French Embassy in Zimbabwe and funds from research and development projects, promote post-graduate training (Msc, MPhil and PhD), mostly for Zimbabwean students and when possible for staff from technical services.  So far, the RP-PCP has supported 11 PhDs, 22 MPhil and 8 MSc (with 35% completed).

Land-use differences at the periphery of Protected Areas (photo: A. Caron)

Two examples of Cirad projects within the RP-PCP are their disease transmission projects at the wildlife/livestock interface in Gonarezhou National Park (Greater Limpopo TFCA) and Hwange National Park (Kavango-Zambezi TFCA) – both these projects can be seen on the MAPA conservation layer.

One thing these two parks have in common is that they are both located along international borders and within TFCAs wildlife/livestock interfaces are numerous in these TFCAs (sometimes with fences but often with no physical barrier between land-uses). One of the consequences of these interfaces is the transmission of important diseases (e.g. Foot-and-Mouth Disease, bovine tuberculosis, theileriosis) from wildlife to cattle and vice versa, threatening both conservation and development objectives.

Understanding and managing wildlife/livestock interaction and disease transmission on the periphery of these protected areas and TFCAs is thus particularly critical, and exactly what Cirad and its partners hopes to achieve by fitting GPS collars to both cattle and buffalos and surveying these ungulate populations for major diseases. This issue is important for wildlife conservation, livestock production (and therefore for rural livelihoods) but also for public health as some of these diseases such as zoonoses can be transmitted from animals to humans (e.g. brucellosis, rift valley fever).

Cattle in a dip-tank (left) and interviews with cattle farmers (right) (photos: A. Caron)

The sanitary aspect is only one of the aspects addressed through the RP-PCP. Human-Elephant conflicts, impact of tourism and hunting on the wildlife resource, perceptions of farmers on TFCAs and many other topics are tackled by research students (click here to see and download a leaflet).

Both disease transmission projects, as well as the Research platform have now been added to MAPA’s database and can be found on our Google Earth layer. To explore the great work Cirad does in Zimbabwe in Google Earth, download MAPA’s conservation layer for Google Earth, or visit their website.

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