Recently IFAW sponsored the tenBoma project, an effort to improve reporting, tracking, and enforcement to counter wildlife crime in Kenya. Fulcrum is playing a key role on the ground to help the Kenyan Wildlife Services (KWS) catalog events associated with poaching activities. For the last several months, KWS personnel have been using Fulcrum for on-the-ground event tracking and counter-poaching investigations. During a recent trip to Voi, Kenya, near the Tsavo East National Park, I had to pleasure of working with KWS personnel and a team from Agile Analytics Group to assist in workflow development and field collection process. During the trip we refined the Service’s workflows, and how Fulcrum could better be used to support operations.
The visit
During the visit, the team worked with staff on location to train them in field data collection techniques. Additionally, they demonstrated how to deploy and manage Fulcrum effectively as a tool for field investigations. They explained how plotting data on maps alongside geospatial information helps answer questions and improve operations management.
After initial introductions to the existing operations, one of the first requirements identified was the need for tracking the status of work, which we set up using status fields. The KWS required a system to flag areas requiring attention, often based on reports of illegal activity. By leveraging the status fields in Fulcrum, they can create reports from the field or headquarters with ease. These fields also allow users to track whether reports have been reviewed and confirm when responses have been issued. This functionality has significantly reduced the time agents need to react and prioritize investigative work in the field.
Not just elephants
Of course poaching covers many species in addition to elephants. There are gazelles, impalas, and hundreds of animals at risk of becoming bush meat. Another common related problem the spread of illegal charcoal production. With so many different observations to record, building picklists made the data capture workflow significantly faster. Agents in trucks or on the move during data collection can now efficiently catalog reports for immediate use. At the same time, KWS users of Fulcrum can quickly select mammals, reptiles, or specific sub-species. They can also identify the type of offense and general location using the same streamlined picklists.sub-species very quickly. Users can also choose the type of offense and general location from picklists.
The Lion Hill Lodge at Tsavo East
We further demonstrated how agents from both the HQ and in the field can use the search functions in Fulcrum to match perpetrators or modus operandi to different areas within Kenya. The catalog and search functions will no doubt have a profound affect on counter poaching efforts in the future, since field investigators will have better visibility into what other teams are doing. Even these modest information-sharing capabilities add immense transparency that wasn’t previously possible in their sparse environment.
New tools, better results
Gone are the days of miscommunicated names of perpetrators relayed over radios or cell phones. Misspellings can lead to missed opportunities to capture wanted persons. The agent now has the power to relay the correct spellings and speed the capture of poachers and criminals. No longer do agents need to keep notebooks full of information and transfer to reports upon return to the office. The information is captured immediately, in the correct format and transferred to appropriate destination immediately. With these new tools, collection methods, and data sharing practices, KWS has been empowered to tackle the challenge of connecting the dots and preventing poaching before it happens.