75 Conservation professionals tackle biodiversity preservation efforts with maps and apps. Conservationists use GIS to gain insights into complex environmental challenges to better understand the interdependencies of native species and human activity and mitigate threats from climate change. In the Congo Basin, the Baka people's deep Indigenous knowledge is being leveraged for sustainability efforts across Central Africa. Thomas Smith, a professor of ecology and evolutionary biology at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), has been working with local Baka experts since the mid1980s, helping to capture this knowledge using GIS technology. “There’s really a vast perceptual difference in the way they see the forest,” said Smith. He established the Congo Basin Institute to further the collaboration and advance conservation. The Baka guides learned about mapping tools and conservation practices and have since been instrumental in recording their knowledge. The field notes from Baka guides, which encompass knowledge about local plants, wildlife, and seasonal cycles, are integrated with other data on GIS maps. Smith noted, “The Baka people are our interpretive guides to understand what direction to go.” Melanie Smith, the program director for the Bird Migration Explorer at the National Audubon Society, has been working to tell the complex story of bird migration with the help of GIS technology. She and her colleagues aggregated research data from hundreds of institutions and designed an accessible platform that visualizes the annual journeys of more than 450 bird species. “Birds are important ecological indicators,” Smith said. “They tell us about the health of the environment because what birds need and what humans need are very similar: clean air, clean water, open space, access to food, and shelter.” The Explorer uses species, location, and conservation challenge maps to combine bird banding, tracking, abundance, and genetic data with geography. In Kenya, the Elephants and Bees Project for Save the Elephants has developed a nature-based solution to human-elephant conflict. Beehive fences, equipped with wire and treated poles, are constructed around farms. When elephants strike the fence wires, bees are alerted, and their buzzing scares the elephants away. Conservation To monitor farms and fences, a team of GIS officers initially visited farmers with handheld GPS devices and manually recorded information about humanelephant conflicts. This process was transformed when the officers deployed ArcGIS Survey123, a GIS app that works on smartphones and tablets, allowing real-time data collection. The data collected is visualized using ArcGIS Dashboards, which allows the team to understand and monitor elephant interactions with the ecosystem. This project highlights how technology, combined with traditional ecological knowledge, can contribute to the conservation of endangered species. During Catherine Ressijac’s pursuit of a master’s degree in conservation medicine, her continued connection with Imire Rhino & Wildlife Conservation proved helpful to her research. Her work to apply GIS to fill in data gaps about the species on the preserve became a skill she could give back to the community. “I had this aha moment that I could hand a mobile app to a ranger with deep ecological knowledge, and they could capture data in the field in such an easy way. And then someone far away like me could access, manage, and draw insights from it,” Ressijac said. In Argentina’s Iberá National Park, Rewilding Argentina is working to repopulate the jaguar, a species that was declared locally extinct more than 70 years ago. Carlos De Angelo, a professor and jaguar researcher, advised researchers on using GIS-powered maps and analysis to track jaguar movements and measure their impact on the ecosystem. De Angelo and his team monitored other animal populations, inspecting predator-prey relationships to understand ecosystem health and stability. They mapped numbers and locations of prey to determine suitable jaguar habitats. “Rewilding Argentina has the power to do more dynamic work,” De Angelo said. He emphasized the impact of adopting a combination of GIS mobile apps and dashboards that has brought an expansive conservation effort to life. As humankind's impact drives disruption to the natural resources that sustain life, communities and local people around the globe are mobilizing to become better stewards of the world around them. Adaptive communitybased conservation planning employs GIS to help community members better understand the importance of nature and protected areas and leads to informed sustainable actions.
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