86 Mugo and the other officers saved time by deploying ArcGIS Survey123, a GIS app that works on smartphones and tablets. After digitizing their questionnaires, the officers could visit farmers and collect data in real time. The result, Mugo said, was transformative. “It slashed our working time from around 80 hours a month to about 16 hours.” As data comes into the office from the field, staff ensure that records are properly analyzed and stored. Reporting is also much easier, giving staff more time for analysis rather than data entry. Data collected with Survey123 is then visualized with ArcGIS Dashboards. Together, these tools convey information about elephant movement, crop raids, and beehive fence maintenance. The collected data is hosted and visualized with a single system, making it easier to see which regions might need enhanced support and optimal locations to expand the program. As a result, the Elephants and Bees Project increased the number of farms in the beehive fence program. They’re now protecting 47 farms in Sagalla—a community in Voi, Kenya—up from 30 farms. Exploring New Methods of Understanding Elephant Migration With the time saved by using geospatial tools, Mugo and the Elephants and Bees Project staff can focus on other important work. While beehive monitoring is still key to their efforts, officers have also trained farmers in conservation agriculture methods, built a women’s enterprise center where local women weave baskets and knit bee suits and bags to generate alternative income, packaged “elephantfriendly” honey and other products, and developed an elephant conservation curriculum and have produced a Human-Elephant Coexistence Toolbox. The toolbox is a wealth of knowledge for communities hoping to resolve human-elephant conflict and includes strategies from across Africa. “The toolbox has instruction manuals for many methods you can use to deter elephants— not just beehives. Other places are dealing with these conflicts, and we’ve been able to communicate to a wider audience so that people can learn from these tools and methods. No one method will work everywhere, and new learnings from the field will feed back into the toolbox,” Mugo said. The toolbox includes details on elephant behavior and why they’re an important species as well as farm protection methods, elephant-compatible farming practices, habitat information, and guidance on living near elephants. To benefit elephant diets, Mugo is researching whether specific plants are attractive to elephants, using imagery and remote sensing technology. She published a paper in 2022 Gathering details from farmers is now done with ArcGIS Survey123, eliminating duplicate data entry. Image by Sarah Kunkel, courtesy of Save the Elephants.
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