Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) for Effective Law Enforcement and Wildlife Monitoring in the Sundarbans Mangrove Forest, Bangladesh

‘SMART Handbook’ were jointly developed with the BFD and includes valuable contributions by a multi-stakeholder’s SMART working group members. The SOP constitutes a crucial milestone and presents a uniform and practical framework for implementing SMART in the Sundarbans. The provisions that were incorporated in the SOP and Handbook are consistent with the laws and regulations of the ‘Government of Bangladesh’. All the staffs involved in SMART patrolling were oriented on the ‘SMART Handbook’ and ‘SOP’ and everyone have a hard copy of the same. This helps them to guide during patrols.

BFD was looking for an effective conservation law enforcement option that would equally be practical and affordable in the context of Sundarbans. Attaining good results from piloting initiatives inspired BFD to full-scale implementation in Sundarbans. However, implementing SMART independently but efficiently was a big challenge since BFD was solely dependent on external supports (i.e. Projects). SMP’s approach to develop pool of master-trainers for SMART, use them to train frontline staffs, develop data managers and analyzers had highly motivated BFD towards more independent SMART rollout in the Sundarbans.

BFD realized the need and responded promptly to develop standard SMART protocols for Sundarbans jointly with developers and relevant stakeholders and brought into practice. With the approval of SOP, handbook and other related documents, BFD ensured necessary legal instruments for its smooth functioning. It also maintained sustained fund flow to cater the need of logistics and fuel to keep SMART operational.

Comprehensive training material developed and provided to support SMART trainings. BFD frontline staff’s capacity has been built to successfully conduct SMART patrolling in the field and handlings of necessary equipment and gadgets. Three different training efforts were made available –

• SMART Training of Trainers - selected BFD mid-level staffs trained engaging expatriate facilitators on the basics as well as advanced skills on SMART patrolling using developed training materials, 41 best-performers identified and designated as ‘master trainer’.
• Basic SMART Patrolling - ‘master trainers’ trained (in presence and support of expatriate facilitators) 125 frontline BFD staffs on the basic skills of SMART patrolling, conducted demo patrols, physical handling of gadgets and equipment who later became active in patrolling team.
• SMART Database Management - 31 BFD Officers were trained on data cleaning, editing, analysis, report generation and interpretation of findings. Selected staffs received advanced data management training also.

SMART patrol teams in the Sundarbans were accompanied by on-board mentors in selected patrols and helped to overcome their problems on-site particularly on the use of a Global Positioning System (GPS), navigation, boat and foot patrols, law enforcement, and improved data collections and ensured quality.

8 teams formed for SMART patrolling in 4 Forest Ranges of the Sundarbans. A mother vessel, one fiber-body trawler (for patrols in the canals and creeks) and a speed-boat to go to the areas where trawler couldn’t access due to narrow width of canal/creek and less water depth as well as to chase offenders. Under the leadership of a Team Leader, each team stays in the field for 10-14 days and patrols crime hotspots, records sightings of key wildlife species, illicit activities, checks permits and necessary documents, gadgets/gears of fishers, arrest offenders, handover offenders to nearby Forest Offices, records all data in the data model configured in the handheld device (i.e. CyberTracker).

After completion of the trip, Team hands over their handheld device to ‘Data Manager’ for data quality checking and unload data in the data storage platform. Team Leader also make a briefing note for the next patrol team highlighting their coverage areas, potential crime hotspots and dierction for next patrol team. Cleaned data then comes to ‘Data Coordinator’ who then compile data from all 4 Ranges, analyze and generate reports with` findings in different graphs, shows trends, hotspots, information on offenders and arrested ones, etc. and present to SMART enforcement committee to help further decision making and adaptive management.

BFD has started using SMART as an adaptive management tool in the Sundarbans which is among the key potential benefits of the approach.

Presentation of reports to SMART enforcement committee helped the decision makers of BFD to plan patrols based on data queries and interpretations from actual SMART reports. This with on-board mentoring observations helped BFD decision makers to take further management decisions.

BFD is using SMART patrol reports and assess how patrol plans have been adapted based on the results of previous patrols and how effective these adaptations have been in increasing the effectiveness of SMART patrols as evidenced by the area covered, number of arrests and successful prosecutions of criminals committing serious wildlife, fisheries and forest crimes such as poaching and poison fishing; confiscations of boats, weapons, snares and traps, and wildlife carcasses and body parts; and trends (increasing, stable or decreasing) in sighting rates of key threatened wildlife species.