{"id":772145,"date":"2026-03-31T19:59:22","date_gmt":"2026-04-01T02:59:22","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/?post_type=arcnews&#038;p=772145"},"modified":"2026-03-31T15:08:27","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T22:08:27","slug":"from-big-cats-to-big-data","status":"publish","type":"arcnews","link":"https:\/\/www.esri.com\/about\/newsroom\/arcnews\/from-big-cats-to-big-data","title":{"rendered":"From Big Cats to Big Data"},"author":6921,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"sync_status":"","episode_type":"","audio_file":"","castos_file_data":"","podmotor_file_id":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","filesize_raw":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","itunes_episode_number":"","itunes_title":"","itunes_season_number":"","itunes_episode_type":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1041,291,381322],"tags":[430931,170662,163382,472171,241],"arcnews_issues":[493400],"class_list":["post-772145","arcnews","type-arcnews","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-collaboration","category-nonprofit","category-sustainability","tag-arcgis-dashboard","tag-arcgis-hub","tag-arcgis-online","tag-arcgis-survey123","tag-gis","arcnews_issues-spring-2026","arcnews_sections-your-work"],"acf":{"short_description":"African People & Wildlife works with Maasai pastoralists in Tanzania to use GIS to document phenomena and share their knowledge of the land.","pdf":{"host_remotely":false,"file":"","file_url":""},"flexible_content":[{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Balancing human livelihoods with wildlife conservation requires precision and patience. African People &amp; Wildlife (APW), a US-based nonprofit operating in Tanzania, initially set out to help Maasai pastoralists protect their herds from big cats.\r\n\r\nTwo decades later, the nonprofit has expanded its mission into an even more complicated balancing act, using GIS as foundational technology. Working closely with the Maasai people and leaning into their deep, historical knowledge of the land, APW is helping them document phenomena across the Maasai Steppe, from the changing plant heights and heavy rains to invasive plants and insect habitats.\r\n\r\nBut the point is not to change traditional ways. Rather, it is to connect the knowledge that\u2019s already being gathered and demonstrate to others how the Maasai have sustained their land for so long."},{"acf_fc_layout":"gallery","gallery_images":[772147,772148]},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"<h2>Lions at the Gates<\/h2>\r\nAPW\u2019s Sustainable Rangeland Initiative helps Maasai pastoralists preserve their traditional way of life in the heart of the Tarangire-Manyara ecosystem. Also called the Maasai Steppe, the region spans over 15,000 square miles of wetlands, rangelands, and savannahs.\r\n\r\nAround 600,000 ethnically Maasai people live in the area, tending to millions of cattle, sheep, and goats. Around half of the villages APW partners with lie between two national parks, Tarangire and Lake Manyara.\r\n\r\nUnder a legal framework created in the 1990s, the Maasai manage the rangelands between the parks while practicing certain conservation approaches, such as rotating fields to provide passage for migratory animals. Migration heightens the potential for conflict with wildlife\u2014through predation or grass trampling\u2014but herders are prohibited from harming the animals."},{"acf_fc_layout":"sidebar","layout":"standard","image_reference":null,"image_reference_figure":"","spotlight_image":null,"section_title":"","spotlight_name":"","position":"Right","content":"In 2025, APW\u2019s Sustainable Rangeland Initiative won the Tech4Nature Award from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN).","snippet":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"APW\u2019s original mission was to work with villages via its partner organization, Tanzania People &amp; Wildlife (TPW), to reduce conflict caused by big cats\u2014mostly lions\u2014moving between protected areas and communal lands, where livestock are vulnerable to carnivores.\r\n\r\nThe Maasai had long used nighttime corrals, called bomas, surrounded by thornbushes to deter wildlife. These bomas tended to decay rapidly, giving lions access. Their attacks on livestock often led to killing the protected animals.\r\n\r\nAPW helped the herders design sturdier bomas called Living Walls, which have thick groves of trees reinforced by chain-link fences. They were a success, but there were larger, more holistic issues.\r\n\r\n\u201cYou couldn\u2019t just solve the problem of lions eating cows,\u201d said Katy Teson, APW\u2019s communications and outreach manager. \u201cWhat about poverty? What about the land?\u201d\r\n<h2>Old Ways, New Methods<\/h2>\r\nWhen TPW launched the Sustainable Rangeland Initiative nearly a decade ago, the organization worked with three villages. They used open-source software to gather and process the data, along with ArcGIS Desktop. The results were presented to villagers through slideshow presentations.\r\n\r\n\u201cThe process was very cumbersome for the team,\u201d said Elizabeth Naro, TPW\u2019s director of monitoring, evaluation, learning, and adaptation. \u201cThe program couldn\u2019t expand drastically until we received ArcGIS Online.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":772150,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Around 2019, TPW began working with ArcGIS Solutions for Protected Area Management\u2014now called the Conservation Land Management toolset.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat was a real game changer,\u201d Naro said.\r\n\r\nTPW transferred data collection workflows to ArcGIS Survey123 and adopted ArcGIS Dashboards for visualization.\r\n\r\n\u201cThat let us grow the program quickly to meet the demand of villages requesting support,\u201d Naro said.\r\n\r\nTPW loads Survey123 on smartphones used by the pastoralists. Once a month, herders survey each plot of land by walking it and entering data every five meters. TPW staff then use ArcGIS Online to add the data to a dashboard for that village.\r\n\r\nThe data for all plots in a village goes into a larger dashboard, which pastoralists can view at small technology centers that TPW helped build. Some of the dashboard data is shared with other villages via sites built with ArcGIS Hub.\r\n\r\nNaro stressed that the initiative is more about reframing old ways than introducing new ones, with GIS being used to help quantify and explain Maasai pastoralist methods.\r\n\r\n\u201cThese herders are still using indigenous methods,\u201d she said. \u201cWe\u2019re just providing the opportunity to integrate this knowledge with modern technology.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":772151,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Grass height, for example, has always been a carefully watched metric of a field\u2019s health. Herders would make scratches on their legs to mark the height. Over time, a herder\u2019s scarred legs would become a living record of several years of herding on a plot.\r\n\r\n\u201cOlder generations can have scars that provide amazing datasets, going back 50 years,\u201d Naro said.\r\n\r\nThese methods were the Maasai\u2019s version of the penciled-in data that field observers worldwide make while collecting data. One might argue that scarred legs are a more practical way of storing and accessing data than filing cabinets filled with years of spreadsheets. The drawback of both methods is that they make it hard to visualize data and discuss it with others.\r\n\r\nFor the Maasai, GIS also gives them in-creased visibility of official sources of knowledge and funding.\r\n\r\n\u201cUnfortunately, we\u2019ve noticed there\u2019s often not a lot of credence in the scientific community given to indigenous methods,\u201d Naro said.\r\n<h2>Plant Invaders<\/h2>\r\nNaro recently demonstrated how the dashboards organize information. On her monitor, she zoomed in on a village called Ngoley (pronounced <em>n-go-LAY<\/em>). The screen was populated with the various plots used by Ngoley\u2019s herders.\r\n\r\nGraphics on the dashboard showed the last few years of grass height, vegetation cover, and \u201cperceptions of the state of the rangeland,\u201d she said. \u201cThat one is very important to me because I\u2019m not a pastoralist, so I care what the other community members think.\u201d"},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":772153,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"Another graph measured the presence of invasive plants, which also tracked closely with rainfall. Naro focused on the rainy season months of 2023, when an especially strong El Ni\u00f1o season produced record-setting torrential rains.\r\n\r\nThe rains had been a welcome respite from a two-year drought. But for the herders, they also represented the kind of imbalance the Sustainable Rangeland Initiative tries to rectify.\r\n\r\nA pink line revealed the proliferation of the <em>Sphaeranthus<\/em> plant on the fields. Like other invasive plants, it had increased after the El Ni\u00f1o rains. But it can also survive dry periods, so even as the rains receded, the plants remained.\r\n\r\nThe only livestock that will eat the plant are goats\u2014and even they soon tire of it.\r\n\r\n\u201cIt\u2019s thorny and nasty,\u201d Naro said. \u201cIt makes a pasture useless.\u201d\r\n\r\nAs <em>Sphaeranthus<\/em> takes over the land, wildlife is forced to find different routes to healthy grasses, which can lead to more conflict with humans and livestock.\r\n\r\nHerders didn\u2019t need a dashboard to tell them about the problem\u2014they could see the plant spreading across the rangelands. The dashboard made it easier for the village to apply for funds to mount a massive eradication effort. The data also provided a good baseline to monitor the aftermath of the project.\r\n<h2>From Cats to Bees<\/h2>\r\nAPW continues to find new ways to help people on the Maasai Steppe and in other regions of Tanzania address problems of imbalance. A women\u2019s beekeeping program, though separate from the rangeland initiative, has similar habitat benefits."},{"acf_fc_layout":"image","image":772155,"image_position":"center","orientation":"horizontal","hyperlink":""},{"acf_fc_layout":"content","content":"The honey that bees produce offers economic advantages to the villages. The pollination helps the continued proliferation of native plants. Tanzanian law also protects trees with beehives and the land around active hives, extending conservation benefits even further.\r\n\r\n\u201cOne of the reasons we cocreated the beekeeping project with communities is to help women have a sustainable income in a way that ties closely to the rangelands,\u201d Teson said. \u201cWe have the same data-driven GIS approach for conflict, rangeland, and beehive data\u2014there are now so many different layers to our map.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWe want to keep formalizing the data collection process in a way that lets the outside world truly appreciate what the Maasai people do and give them financial support for programs like the invasive species uprooting,\u201d Naro added. \u201cAnd also, ideally, make it so they don\u2019t have to cut their legs every year.\u201d"}],"references":null},"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO Premium plugin v25.9 (Yoast SEO v25.9) - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ 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