law enforcement monitoring in the albertine rift
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Research to Policy: Final Research Workshop Law Enforcement Monitoring in the Albertine RiftTRANSCRIPT
Law Enforcement Monitoring in the
Albertine Rift
Andy Plumptre, Deo Kujirakwinja, Felix Mulindahabi,
Aggrey Rwetsiba, M. Driciru and Fred Wanyama
Why are we doing ICDPs
As Conservation Practitioners we are using
development projects to:
Build better relations with the communities around where we
work
To some extent improve their livelihoods
Change attitudes for the better with respect to conservation
Change behaviours, particularly with regards to illegal
activities
Very few projects can demonstrate reduced illegal
activities as a result of an ICD project
Need to be able to show this – can use Ranger-based
monitoring
Development and Roll out of MIST
MIST developed by Ecological
Software Solutions with GTZ
support in Murchison Falls Park.
Project ended in 2001 and no
support to continue it
WCS with MacArthur Funds
helped UWA roll it out to rest of
their parks
Then expanded to Nyungwe
(Rwanda),Virunga Park and then
Kahuzi Biega, Okapi etc (DRC).
Led to training for all PAs in
Rwanda
Expansion across Africa and World
Adopted as database by MIKE
which led to it being rolled out
across all MIKE sites in Africa and
Asia
Demonstrated in NY and adopted by
other sites – notably Cambodia and
Gabon but also Russia, Thailand –
Tiger programs in particular
MIST analysis embedded within a site or
National Monitoring Framework
Identify why protected area is important globally and nationally
Identify threats to these conservation targets
What strategies are currently used to address these threats
What can be monitored to tell us whether we are reducing the threats
What data are collected, by who and when
Who is responsible and how often does he/she report
When are results assessed and decisions made on the strategy
NB. More than just MIST data feeds into this analysis
National Monitoring plans developed for
Uganda and Rwanda
Developed plans at site level in 10
Parks and 6 wildlife reserves in
Uganda
All three parks in Rwanda
Virunga, Kahuzi, Okapi, Salonga,
Maiko, Itombwe in DRC
Data requirements include data
collected for MIST
How has law enforcement monitoring helped?
Planning patrols and reviewing patrol
coverage
Led to more directed management of patrols
in most sites where results reviewed on a
monthly basis
Mapping locations of key threats
Maps have been used to demonstrate
increases in threats leading to political action
Maps used to demonstrate improvements in
management to senior staff
Maps used to justify changes in proposed
strategies
Patrol coverage – Kibale National Park
2004 2005 2006 2007
2008 2009
Mapping illegal activities
2004 2005 2006 2007
2008 2009
How has law enforcement monitoring helped?
Trends in encounter rates of threats
Used to make an annual assessment of the
management effectiveness
In PNKB couple this with a threats reduction
assessment analysis – Margolius and Salafsky
Maps of species distributions
While not an good measure of species
abundance, location data are still useful to
know where species are being sighted or not
Data have been used to support
prosecutions in some areas
Trends in encounter rates
Identify where patrol effort is high
Can plot where patrols
have been and the relative
frequency of patrolling
Can the coverage be
improved? – about 60.4%
of landscape patrolled in
5-9 years
Only 22% has been
patrolled effectively to
provide a level of
deterrence though
Look at patrol effort in relation to patrol posts
75% of observations within 5km and 50% within 3 km of patrol post
Impact on illegal activities
Where is LE money invested
Most of conservation
budget spent on
patrolling around patrol
posts
Partly due to the fact that
area to patrol increases
with distance from post
Partly due to most effort
being close to the post
Problems with MIST
Current analysis looks at trends across PA only –
can’t look at spatial patterns in trends in PA
This assumes that equal patrol effort is made between
observation periods and that same cells are visited –
unlikely
Also assumes equal detectability of species or illegal
activities
Doesn’t allow analyses of different types of
patrols – eg intelligence-based, vehicle patrols etc
MIKE
SMART - Very wide engagementFounders
Additional users Current partners
Link intelligence information to patrolling
Facilitate evaluation and planning of patrols
Improve analysis and interpretation of data
Improved training materials and support
New features in SMART
Link intelligence information to patrolling
Facilitate evaluation and planning of patrols
Improve analysis and interpretation of data
Improved training materials and support
New features in SMART
• Less bugs
• More flexibility
• Multiple languages
• GPS/PDA-compatible
• Open Source – plug-ins likely to be developed
• Looking at more robust analyses of RBM data
Feb ‘13 SMART 1.0 released
Mar’13 Regional training workshop (Central Africa)
Apr ’13 SMART 1.1 released
May’13 Regional training workshop (East Africa)
Jul ’13 Hand-held tablet/PDA support
~2013 Case-tracking/real time data support (in the
pipeline)
Timeline
Thanks
PA Wardens of all the parks
with MIST in the AR (ICCN,
RDB and UWA)
Rangers collecting data
Funding: USAID,
MacArthur Foundation, Neu
Foundation, Newmans Own,
USFWS, WCS, IUCN SOS,