GIS in the Bush

Hi, all!  We are back in Arusha after just over a week of very exciting and ground-breaking work. Dr. Seth Wilson, a post-doctoral researcher at Yale University, came to visit the People & Predators Fund in the bush after meeting up with Laly in South Africa at the Annual Meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology. Dr. Wilson brought with him a new computer for Buddy and state-of-the-art GIS mapping software that he helped us to acquire via a grant from the ESRI Conservation Program. The ArcGIS software is a highly advanced tool for mapping a region and recording, organizing, and analyzing data spatially. It will be a key tool for looking at the information generated by our Livestock Predation Program in the north; in southern Tanzania, it will help facilitate the mapping of potential wildlife management areas that PPF is helping villages to establish.

When looking at a region using GIS, the landscape is recorded in specific detail.  This is done in various different ways, depending on which attributes are best for representing a three-dimensional landscape on a two-dimensional screen. Anything from recording the topography of the area to using land-satellite photographs can be incorporated. Once this is done, information about specific areas on the map is recorded.  For example, vegetation, habitat, and water points can be mapped spatially.

Buddy is already churning away with the software. He has made several maps that will be helpful in explaining concepts about wildlife movement to villagers in Loibor Serrit. When Buddy is interested in something, he passionately immerses himself in learning all there is to know about the topic. When we took Dr. Wilson into Tarangire National Park for a brief safari, Buddy and he continued discussions about possible options for cartography, statistical analyses, etc. as though they hadn’t left the office.  Laly joked at lunch that day that Seth and Buddy should whip out the laptop for a quick tutorial while we were eating at the lodge. It has been an intense, exhausting, but rewarding week filled with time-restricted GIS lessons juggled with routine business around camp such as going on water runs and continuing work on grant applications.

Even with this tight schedule, we managed to see and do some amazing things.  One evening we went on a surprise hike to an unknown destination with Saitoti, our livestock predation coordinator. Two hours later, just as the sun was setting, we ended up at Saitoti’s father’s boma. Saitoti’s half brother, Kichwa, was married that day, and we stayed in the evening for part of the wedding ceremony. The celebration was filled with guttural singing, vigorous dancing, smoky chai, sweet sweat smelling of cloves, and many, many family members crowded in a room the size of three pool tables to drink spiced sour milk and to observe the nuptial bed covered in the skin of a cow. Standing outside underneath the pulsing stars listening to undulating voices and bodies was an experience that I probably never again will be a part of, but certainly never will forget.

Rebecca Lieb – PPF Intern