FCF recognizes that to make effective wildlife management decisions and promote long-term sustainability of wildlife and wild areas, we need to conduct research and monitoring. We use a number of management tools towards conserving the wild areas of Tanzania and to monitor wildlife and human activities toward sustainable conservation practices.
FCF has established a wildlife monitoring project; the initial program consists of a 5-year monitoring plan for aerial and other wildlife surveys, approved by the Tanzanian Government in 2006. The aim is to continuously monitor wildlife populations in the areas in which FCF work in order to assist in the management of these areas based on an ecologically meaningful timeframe. The approved program includes aerial surveys, ground counts of cryptic species such as the gerenuk and lesser kudu, and targeted lion surveys. We intend to expand and develop the monitoring project over time, to include additional programs such as population dynamics studies.
We are planning a centralized relational database to compare and relate the data collected, including wildlife populations and sightings, legal and illegal human activities, vegetation and physical data such as rainfall. For example, FCF hopes to analyze the relationship between anti-poaching patrols or community development projects or hunting records with wildlife population trends.
FCF uses a Geographic Information System (GIS) to capture, manage, analyze and display geographically referenced data. Geo-referenced data includes animal sightings, borders, roads, contours, rivers and other water bodies, locations of poaching activities inside game reserves, locations of villages and other human activities. GIS maps are used to assist in planning anti-poaching patrols, wildlife surveys and community development projects, as well as analyzing and displaying results from these projects.
We work collaboratively with the Tanzanian Wildlife Research Institute (TAWIRI), the research arm of the Tanzanian Government. In November 2006 TAWIRI certified four FCF staff members in aerial surveys, in the first rounds of certification outside employees of the Tanzanian Government.
FCF continues to assist in wildlife research and works cooperatively with other bodies and the Tanzanian Government on broad-scale projects. In November 2006 we again played a major role in assisting Dr Alfred Kikoti, a respected elephant researcher based in northern Tanzania. Dr Kikoti placed satellite collars on an additional eleven elephants and continues to monitor their movements as well as human-elephant conflict.
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