Hatfield Consultants provides mapping and monitoring services to African parks in Garamba National Park, DRC
Oct 19, 2017
Hatfield evaluates revolutionary new satellite earth observation technology with African Parks in Garamba National Park, Democratic Republic of the Congo.
Led by Hatfield Consultants, technical experts from Hatfield, Airbus, and Pink Matter Solutions worked with African Parks to provide up-to-date baseline land cover and habitat maps, fire detection and fire scar mapping, and ongoing change detection services. These showed potential to provide valuable information for planning the deployment of ranger patrols and to contribute as a force multiplier. Monitoring of fires and land cover change within the park can reveal areas that should be investigated based on suggestions of human activity and patterns of movement within and around the park.
Evaluation of the potential role of satellite earth observation to contribute valuable anti-poaching information began in 2015, with Hatfield collaborating with African Parks and the European Space Agency in the EO4Wildlife project. The objective was to evaluate how new satellite technology could contribute to African Parks’ monitoring of the park, and planning and implementation of anti-poaching efforts within its vast area. Monitoring efforts utilizing only ground and aerial patrols face enormous logistical and security challenges. Speaking to the African Parks Newsroom, Carien Soldatos, GIS Coordinator at African Parks Network, noted “African Parks found the EO4Wildlife opportunity to be most valuable in using satellite earth observation to monitor high risk environments from space and critically provide highly accurate information to inform ranger patrol activities in potentially threatening situations.” “The land cover product showed enormous promise as an invaluable resource for patrol planning, monitoring of wildlife movement patterns over time, infrastructure planning and to support risk maps. Fire alerts can improve safety of rangers in the field and highlight suspicious poaching activities in areas which are difficult to patrol, providing a potentially powerful contribution to law enforcement efforts.”
African Parks is looking to expand the use of satellite earth observation technology to other parks in Africa. This initiative received support from the European Space Agency.
For more information, please contact:
Dr. Andy Dean
Partner & Senior Geomatics Specialist
HATFIELD CONSULTANTS PARTNERSHIP
E-mail: hcp@hatfieldgroup.com
Tel.: +1-604-926-3261
Toll-Free: +1-866-926-3261
