SGC 2024 Day 3 - Part 2: SMART in Indigenous & Community Conserved Areas

Speakers: Rebecca Jeppesen, Diana Paredes, Leng Phlong, and Samuel Merson

1. SMART Solutions for Knowledge Sharing & Data Engagement in the Canadian Arctic - Authors: Rebecca Jeppesen, Drew Cronin, Denis Ndeloh, Leigh Gustafson 
Since 2021, the Nunavut Wildlife Management Board has used SMART to collect, store, manage, and use the vast amount of data contributed by Inuit harvesters through the Community-Based Monitoring Network (CBMN). In this presentation, we will discuss the benefits of using SMART to implement the CBMN, emphasizing the importance of analysis tools and data products in communicating and interpreting data collected. We will provide examples based on the proceedings and outcomes of a 2023 data engagement and knowledge sharing workshop, which was attended by active Inuit harvesters, elders, and women.

2. SMART Collect helped indigenous territorial management in eight communities in Ecuador - Diana Paredes
When we started using SMART in Ecuador we did not think that this tool could be used in other conservation areas. WCS Ecuador started using SMART Collect for territorial management in eight indigenous communities located in the Ecuadorian Amazon. Each community have a specific data model that is adapted to the requirements of each management plan, each community have monitors that are responsible to collect information of animal monitoring, fishing and threats. Depending the community they visualize the information gathered each month or by the time they decided. In a community located in the South of the Ecuadorian Amazon the information that they collected was used to address an illegal entering from other community. For the second faze of the implementation of SMART Collect we would like to empower local individual to receive training on using SMART connect and to generate their own reports.

3. Integrating SMART Tools in Indigenous and Community Conserved Areas: Enhancing Wildlife Protection and Bunong Indigenous Community Empowerment - Leng Phlong

4. The YUS Conservation Area Rangers: adopting SMART to support conservation area management and monitoring in a challenging and remote part of Papua New Guinea - Samuel Merson
Located on the Huon Peninsula in Papua New Guinea (PNG), the Yopno-Uruwa-Som Conservation Area (YUS CA) is an IUCN VI protected area that encompasses over 162,000 hectares of land pledged by customary landowners for conservation and sustainable use by communities. In 2017, the YUS CA became the first site in PNG to adopt the use of SMART to support community ranger patrols to undertake monitoring of important wildlife, violations of the conservation area by-laws and tracking other management activities including raising awareness of conservation by-laws. This information has supported the more effective management of the ranger program and fed into decision-making at both the community and landscape level to inform land use planning and management of the YUS CA. Despite the successful adoption of SMART, it has had its challenges due to the area’s remote landscape with no roads, limited infrastructure, cellular network, and access to electricity. This has forced the program to be adaptive in how it uses SMART now and into the future.