Smart Parks

Smart Parks is a broad, application-based monitoring service that provides real-time information on wildlife activity. While the Smart Parks applications can be customized by sector (for either wildlife protection, park management, or tourist safety), the Smart Parks team covers all its partner locations with the same autonomous, solar-powered LoRa networks. The Smart Parks networks enable long range communications among sensor nodes, and are unable to be traced by poachers. Smart Parks hardware includes gate sensors, an alarm system, and tracker tags for both wildlife and ranger vehicles. Sensor and tracker information is transmitted and displayed on the Smart Park software application, and includes the precise location as well as specifications on the activity itself. Data from the wildlife, gates and patrol rangers can then be visualized on a map. Known as “Situational Awareness”, Smart Parks operates around the idea that modern conservation must allow for contextual background on wildlife activity. The only drawback to the Smart Parks platform is its inability to be viewed on a mobile device, meaning that management can only happen in real-time within park outposts rather than on the ground. Still, Smart Parks allow for comprehensive management in a removed atmosphere, allowing wildlife managers to make informed decisions on how to proceed in the face of suspicious or outright illegal activity since 2016.

Categories

Biodiversity, Data, Ecological Monitoring, Illegal Resource Extraction, Internet of Things, Monitoring, Regulation