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A Non-Governmental Organisation, Resource Conservation Initiative (RESCONI) has recommended to all stakeholders in the wildlife sector to collectively explore innovative methodologies for the protection and conservation of the precious wildlife resources of the country.

The NGO said the stakeholders in the wildlife sector such as the Ministry of Lands and Natural Resources, the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission, the Metropolitan, Municipal and District Assemblies (MMDAs) and the local populace must enhance collaborative efforts with the citizenry especially the youth in finding innovative and cutting-edge digital technologies to protect wildlife.  

“This will spark synergies to inspire cross-sector collaborations that foster the application of novel digital innovations and technologies to manage the wildlife resources of the country sustainably”, the NGO stated.

Celebrating World Wildlife Day 2024 under the theme “Connecting People and Planet: Exploring Digital Innovation in Wildlife Conservation”, Resource Conservative Initiative (RESCONI) said this has offered opportunities for countries with internet connectivity and access such as Ghana to unleash the power of digital technologies and services in the sustainable management of its wildlife resources and addressing human-wildlife conflicts.

It said the use of digital would make it easier to have ease of access to accurate and efficient data for decision support in wildlife conservation and management.

“It is therefore important that Ghana, a country immersed in nature’s magnificence should bridge conservation, digital technology and innovation in the sustainable management of its wildlife resources”, the NGO told the media.

“As we celebrate World Wildlife Day, it is important to highlight the role of Global Positioning System (GPS) Collars and Transmitters in wildlife conservation in Ghana. It is a well-established fact that conservation efforts have reached an unprecedented high level of advancement in the use of digital technology”, it added.

The NGO indicated that the revolutionary role of using geo-location data through GPS collars and transmitters in appreciating the behaviour of wild animals, estimating migratory routes and habitat utilization is unprecedented.

It added that conservationists through these tracking devices make valuable decisions to conserve threatened species; thus, researchers and conservationists in Ghana are gradually embracing the relevance of digitization in wildlife conservation, hence the need to explore both current and future digitization advances.

The leadership of Resource Conservation Initiative also noted that when GPS collars and transmitters are attached to animals, conservationists can retrieve significant data on how different wildlife species interact with their environment as this enables the development of specific conservation plans and priorities aimed at defined wildlife populations and habitats.

“These devices have contributed to understanding and protecting threatened species within the Protected Areas, Community Resource Management Areas (CREMAs) and other conservation areas under the protection and management of communities, and civil society organisations amongst others.

This is enabling a gradual shift of conservation efforts to data-enhanced strategies. Its usage helps to identify high-risk areas of poaching, human-wildlife conflicts, habitat depletion, the concentration of land-use activities, climate change and the mitigation of biodiversity threats”, the NGO noted.

The NGO, therefore, said that despite the current role of digitization in wildlife conservation in Ghana, there is a need to reminiscence the challenges associated with data privacy, the high cost of monitoring devices, the size of tracking devices relative to animal behaviour and analysis of large datasets.

“It sounds to reason that future proposals must include high investments into the application of these monitoring devices, exposing high numbers of the student population in tertiary institutions and the populace to the use of e-platforms, use of micro-weight devices, and application of Artificial Intelligence to retrieve, analyze and predict effective conservation strategies for the country”, the NGO proposed.