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CyberTracker
I read a short article in the June 2003 issue of Wired magazine about an experiment that Louis Libenberg is doing in southern Africa. The strange juxtoposition of primitive and state of the art technology made the story facinating. Libenberg has equipped some of the best tracker in the world, the Bushman of southern Africa, with GPS equipped PalmPilots. Not only that the PalmPilots feature a special application with animal icons that allow even illiterate Bushman to identify the animal sign they see, and to further report those incidents using the stylus of the PalmPilot by tapping on the correct animal icon. Added to this is the GPS capability, so that for each occurance the incident has GPS coorindates for absolutely accurage wildlife monitoring data, and is uploaded to a desktop computer at specific internvals of data collection. More info on this article is at the Wired web site at: http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.06/bush_spc.html The BBC ran an article about this research as well at: http://www.bbc.co.uk/nature/animals/mammals/tv/science_10.shtml There is an incredible conservation story to this research as well, Louis Libenberg, worked on the development of software that makes conservation reporting truly mobile and simple, and features integrated GPS abilities. This project progressed with incredible media coverage, to allow the development of a not-for-profit organization called CyberTracker, see their web site at: from the BBC website comes this wonderful description: " CyberTracker has now found its way into conservation programmes worldwide, from deserts to the Arctic. Projects range from reintroduced wolves in the USA to the Sumatran Rhino in Borneo to the tropical forests and savannas of the Congo. Involving local communities in key areas of biodiversity, the CyberTracker combines indigenous knowledge with state-of-the-art computer and satellite technology. It also has general data gathering applications in the environmental realm. The lists of species and icons can easily be customised to match an area's needs and cater for their conservation priorities. The developers of CyberTracker believe that it will enable the monitoring of the global ecosystem at a level of detail not previously possible. To achieve their goal the software has been released as greenware (free software that benefits conservation) in order to provide the maximum benefit to conservation." The concept of Greenware is described at: http://www.cybertracker.org/Index.html Greenware from CyberTracker: http://www.cybertracker.org/Index.html This is such a wonderful story of a global conservation effort being facilitated by innovative use of technology, it is a MUST READ if you are the slightest bit green and conservation minded.
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