Internal training and accreditation are instrumental to the deployment of HeroRATs, which are conducted at APOPO's training headquarters on the campus of the Sokoine University of Agriculture in Morogoro, Tanzania. Here, African giant pouched rats are bred and trained for scent detection purposes. They are each trained for a specific programme following strict protocols, where they learn to detect and indicate their target scent and complete search strategies required for deployment. Once training is complete and the rats have been internally accredited, they can then be deployed across the world for operations. APOPO works with implementation and supports partners to achieve the best possible outcomes. Additional accreditation from independent sources can occur at this stage, before rats begin operations. 

A lot of is still unknown about elephants’ dietary preferences and deterrence crops. To expand our knowledge and create replicable methodologies, we studied elephants’ preferences towards 18 different types of crops, the majority of which are of high combined economic value (food, essential oil, medicinal and bee fodder value) and suitable for growing in Southern African climates. The cafeteria-style experiments allowed us to evaluate several plants that have never been tested in terms of their palatability to elephants. Our results showed that herbs such as borage and rosemary with medicinal and aromatic properties, respectively, were strongly avoided together with bird’s eye chilli (a well-known elephant deterrent crop). We found that lemon grass and sunflowers, presented as whole fresh plants to the elephants, were edible to the elephants. This is surprising, as both plant types have been described as unpalatable to both Asian and African elephants alike.

According to our overall scoring system, four food types proved best suited for the proposed corridor region (Bird’s Eye Chilli, Cape Gold, Cape Snowbush and Rosemary). Of these, only Bird’s Eye Chilli had been tested before. The other three plant types have been used in producing essential oil and hold great promise for income-generation.

In order to address urgent HEC incidences, a Rapid Response Unit (RRU) has been established. The need for the RRU was justified due to the increasing pressure from district authorities, who do not have the capacity to mitigate HEC incidences. Consequently, higher levels of government are put under pressure to protect people and livelihoods, often resorting to lethal management of elephants. To avoid these lethal interventions, the role of the RRU is to (1) respond to HEC situations with near-immediate effect, (2) educate community members on how to behave around elephants and deploy HEC toolboxes more effectively, (3) systematically collect data on crop raiding incidences, mitigation methods deployed and elephant responses in order for us to develop an effective early warning system, and (4) disrupt elephant crop-raiding strategies through surprise intervention planning to ultimately contribute towards behavioural modification. The RRU is supported by the GPS collaring data when (1) identifying key human elephant conflict hotspots and (2) building crop raiding probability maps for the strategic deployment of long-term mitigation methods.

Starting from the knowledge that over 50% of elephant movements are outside of Protected Areas (PAs) and over 75% of elephant populations are transboundary, we used a satellite tracking approach to identify which wildlife corridors are most used by elephants.

While our initial plan was to establish a corridor between Gonarezhou (high elephant density) in Zimbabwe with Banhine and/or Zinave National Parks (low elephant density) in Mozambique, insufficient tracking data and reports linking the PAs in these countries (Zimbabwe to Mozambique) to define a conclusive corridor has made us shift our geographical location to Namaacha Valley in southern Mozambique. Here several elephants that we had collared outside of PAs in the hope to find more corridor moving individuals between PAs across southern Mozambique, have defined a vital corridor covering the southern extreme of the KNP, south towards Tembe National Park in South Africa and east towards the Futi corridor and MSR on the coast of Mozambique.

The collaring of elephants and analysis of the tracking data have shown us that existing PAs are too small for elephants. Using elephants as the landscape planners for connectivity across national boundaries, enabled us to identify human-elephant conflict hotspots where efforts are most likely to have the largest impact.

Development of an action plan after the SAGE process was very crucial as it ensured that recommendations provided in the SAGE process were addressed in a systematic and targeted manner whereby key stakeholders who participated in the SAGE process were also engaged in the action planning process hence, they drew the roadmap for implementation of those recommendations.

In addition, recommendations which came out of the SAGE process informed Honeyguide on areas of priority in designing WMA governance capacity building programs.

The process involved in Data for decision-making included gathering information by conducting participatory community Focus Group Discussions (FGDs) and from key stakeholders, development of digital questionnaires, enumerators training on data collection, community data collection exercise and analysing the collected data to draw meaningful insights.

The data-gathering process involved participatory FGDs and engaging stakeholders, collecting information on the positive and negative impacts of Tsavo Trust (TT). This supported the development of a structured survey. The first Stakeholder meeting presented FGD findings, with participants providing additional insights. A digital questionnaire was created based on this input. Ten trained enumerators collected data from 156 households (approx. 950 individuals), achieving gender balance.

Community meetings shared survey results and ideas for addressing negative impacts. A second Stakeholder workshop gathered additional ideas. These components generated meaningful insights for decision-making.

These key components, including participatory discussions, stakeholder engagement, the development of a digital questionnaire, and data collection from households, were instrumental in generating meaningful insights for decision-making.

The objectives of the Preparing for Assessment block were: 

• Conduct a feasibility check, to determine whether SAPA was an appropriate methodology for assessing the social impacts of Kamungi.
• Plan for the assessment, to ensure that the assessment was implemented as a high-quality multi-stakeholder process
• Conduct community mapping, to help ensure that SAPA included all relevant communities within Kamungi.
• Review existing information, To ensure the assessment builds upon existing data relevant to the design and implementation of the assessment.
• Conduct stakeholder analysis,  To identify critical actors that should be engaged in SAPA

The SAPA team provided an overview of the SAPA to TT and Kamungi Conservancy management, this was followed by a community visit for mapping and awareness of the SAPA process, Two facilitators from Kamungi were identified, a male and a female, and trained for 2 days on gathering data from community members on positive and negative effects TT has had in the area. TT management provided the necessary data to facilitate the assessment and identified and ranked its stakeholders, clarifying their interests and Influence, the preparation phase helped set the base for the assessment ensuring all checkboxes were catered for and paving the way for the next building block

PaRx and Parks Canada worked together to identify shared objectives around increasing access to nature and the connection between health, well-being and spending time in nature. This collaboration was formalized in a three-year partnering agreement, establishing that Adult Discovery Passes (valued at $72.25 a year) would be provided free of charge to PaRx to be prescribed by health-care professionals during the course of regular visits. The Parks Canada Adult Discovery Pass provides admission for one adult to over 80 Parks Canada administered places across Canada that typically charge a daily entrance fee for an entire year, including national parks, national historic sites, and national marine conservation areas. When prescribing Adult Discovery Passes to patients, health care providers are asked to prioritize those who live close to national parks, national historic sites, or national marine conservation areas, and who could benefit from it the most, such as those for whom cost of accessing nature may be a barrier.

The PaRx program is Canada’s national nature prescription program. Developed by the BC Parks Foundation, PaRx creates a framework to guide health-care practitioners in prescribing nature to improve patient health and wellbeing. The PaRx program features practical, clinician-focused resources like quick tips and patient handouts, in order to make prescribing time in nature easy and effective. PaRx prescriptions for nature recommend spending at least 2 hours a week in nature, at least 20 minutes at a time, in order to achieve the health and wellbeing benefits of connecting with nature.

The PaRx program design is based on studies suggesting that written prescriptions are better received than oral advice in motivating patients to make a change. Moreover, surveys indicate that health-care providers are consistently ranked among the most trusted professionals, increasing the likelihood that patients will adhere to recommendations to connect with nature for their health and well-being.

Since the software being deployed (SMART) was not being developed but rather an implementation, there existed other organizations that have used it. It was necessary to adapt and capitalize on the experience of other partners for a smooth process. This project engaged Space for Giants (SFG) who monitor large mammals in the landscape to provide guidance, templates and training. The training of trainers was conducted by SFG who also offered support in the development and configuration of necessary databases, online platforms and data collection models.

Two years before the project was conceived, a collaboration between Ol Pejeta and Vulcan Inc. through the Tech Lab saw the creation of an online visualization platform, EarthRanger that has since been used to integrate reports from various sources within the organization and from partners.