Elephants Being Monitored in Tanzania National Parks with GPS Tracking
1 Dec 2015To find the best options to save Tanzania elephants, a special program was launched by the Tanzania National Parks. This program monitors the movements of elephants in Ruaha National Park and is supported by the United Nations Development Program (UNDP).
Working together with the Global Environment Facility (GEF), the UNDP is helping to fund this program in order to support elephant monitoring in Rungwa Game Reserve and Ruaha National Park. This monitoring is being done through the use of a satellite system.
Mr. Allan Kijazi, Director General of Tanzania National Parks, said the main objective of monitoring the movements of elephants through satellite is to gather up information on the elephants seasonal movements in the Great Ruaha landscape.
In order to monitor the elephants’ activity patterns and regional and local movements, the World Elephant Centre was contracted by the UNDP to tag 30 elephants with GPS tracking collar units.
Each unit will come with a mortality sensor built right in to inform researchers if a fitted elephant is killed. The 30 GPS units will be spread evenly around core areas, game reserves, and wildlife management areas around the Ruaha ecosystem.
Information gathered around the elephants seasonal movement patterns will help rangers come up with more informed patrols outside the main protected area.
Under a participative initiative and community conservation, MBOMIPA a local community wildlife conservation program, was formed that involves 19 villages of neighbors to Ruaha Park. This is the leading community wildlife program in Tanzania whose goal is to manage a sustainable and effective wildlife management system under the authority of the community.
MBOMIPA is devoted to promoting sustainable management of all cultural and natural resources to contribute to the decrease in poverty and enhance local economic development in the villages where it operates.
According to the UNDP, this natural, sustainable and community-based resource management is vital to the overall solution to illegal wildlife trade, elephant poaching and poverty reduction methods.
The Global Environmental Facility and UNDP conservation project called SPANEST has also been created which focuses on conserving the landscape and wildlife of Tanzania’s Southern circuit which includes protected areas in Kitulo, Mount Rungwe, Ruaha and Mpanga-Kipengere.
With the support of the UNDP, a census that was conducted through the project showed an evident decline in the population of elephants in the Ruaha-Rungwa ecosystem, which fell from 31,625 elephants back in 2009 to 20,090 in the year 2013.
UNDP is dedicated to supporting the drive against wildlife trade by offering help to Tanzania in the rule of law, governance, environment protection, and poverty eradication support to governments as well as other partners.
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