Daily CSR
Daily CSR

Daily CSR
Daily news about corporate social responsibility, ethics and sustainability

Connected Conservation Expands To Contain Wildlife Poaching



06/14/2018

Cisco has assembled its digital technologies to save the wildlife in remote forests, and its pilot project of Connected Conservation has amassed a success rate of 96%.


Dailycsr.com – 14 June 2018 – Cisco and Dimension Data has been in a partnership for twenty seven years delivering to the world a “greater good”. Both of them harbours a “shared passion” for conserving the “wildlife heritage” with the help of technology, whereby in the year of 2015, the companies in a joint venture introduced “Connected Conservation”.
 
The project aimed to protect the rhinos, whereby putting an end to their poaching with the help of “a unique solution”. A pilot trial took place in an adjacent territory of South Africa’s Kruger National Park, which is a “private game reserve”. Within a span of two years from the project’s introduction, it has been collecting “resounding success”, as the “Connected Conservation” effort brought down 96% of poaching within the territory.
 
With the successful track record, the Connected Conservation has been expanded into various other regions of Africa in an attempt to save “more species of animals”. Moreover, the project will specifically target elephant protection in “Zambia and Mozambique”, along with protecting rhinos and elephants in Kenya.
 
Furthermore, Cisco Systems Inc. informs:
“We’re replicating Connected Conversation in other reserves to not only protect the rhino, but also conserve other endangered species globally such as elephants, lions, pangolin, tigers in India and Asia, and even sea rays, sharks and whales in the ocean”.
 
Inching Towards a Collected Dream
The project expansion is a proof of moving closer to its aim of “eradicating all forms of poaching” which would also take care of the trading of elephants’ tusks and rhino’s horn across international borders.
 
In fact, the “Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species”, in short CITES, have stated that ivory trading is at its leak, whereby marking “an all-time high”. As a result, it is high time that actions are taken to protect endangered species.
 
Successful Solution
The pilot trial of Connected Conservation shows that the programme has been successful in reducing the poaching of rhinos in an “innovative approach”. The programme allows the animals to roam around freely in their natural habitats without disturbance, instead the technology tracks the “movement of people” whereby monitoring “potential poachers”.
 
Among various other measures taken to protect the animals from being hunted, there are “dehorning” and sensor insertion in the horn as well as under the skin. These initiatives does not allow the reserve rangers to reach the animals in time, as by the time they arrive at the spot to rescue the animals, the latter dies in the hands of the poachers and the “rhino horn” and “elephant tusks” fall prey to poaching.
 
The “Connected Conservation Pilot” used an amalgam of Cisco’s technology starting from “digital infrastructure, hybrid cloud” to “digital workplace, and cybersecurity” and overcame various issues that limit the remotely situated game reserves like “manual security processes (lock and key), very basic access control, a lack of basic IT infrastructure, limited communications capabilities” while the harsh weather conditions and their ever changing patterns add to the struggle.
 
References:
3blmedia.com