Laikipia Conservancies Association Rolls Out EarthRanger For Realtime Data Collection & Monitoring

The availability of Data is a key catalyst in delivering our collective impacts as Laikipia Conservancies Association. As a growing data hub, we collect, analyze and disseminate data from our members to enable; both external and internal communications activities, advocacy, driving decision-making, carbon-related studies, and fundraising

toward driving our impacts. Since October 2022, Laikipia Conservancies Association (LCA) in partnership with USAID commenced the migration of our members from SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool) to EarthRanger.

EarthRanger is a software solution that aids protected areas and conservancy managers, ecologists, and wildlife biologists make more informed operational

decisions for wildlife conservation. Protected area managers need to be able to monitor wildlife and their natural habitats in real-time. EarthRanger collects, integrates, and displays all historical and available remote sensing data available and combines it with reports from the field to provide one unified view of wildlife, rangers, enforcement assets, and infrastructure within a protected area.

Twelve conservancies are currently running on EarthRanger. Among these members, five, namely; Sossian, Suyian, Olmaisor, Il Mamusi, and Lolldaiga have been trained on how to efficiently navigate EarthRanger so that each assigned user, particularly the rangers, who collect data from the field and feed it into the system, can utilize the full capabilities of the software. In addition to training, the conservancies have been issued with Android phones and admin Laptops, facilitated by the USAID grant to empower the conservancies in data management and collection.

The LCA secretariat has also received Earth Ranger Training to capacity build them into receiving, analyzing, securely handling, and disseminating data. LCA will continue to ensure a secured, tech-driven, and efficient flow of data from its members into the data hub as it is essential in achieving our strategic goals.