“Out here, situations change in an instant. We face everything from poaching threats to animal movements, and we need to record it all accurately, and fast. When you are tracking a group of elephants, or following poacher tracks, you don’t have time to stop, and write pages of notes.”
▲ Home Ncube
UNDP Zimbabwe Annual Report
2024 in Review

Data Drives the Wild

Homege Ncube
Senior Ranger at Mana Pools National Park
Protecting Zimbabwe’s extraordinary biodiversity requires more than boots on the ground; it demands precise, timely data. By transitioning from cumbersome paper-based systems to agile digital platforms, we equipped rangers with the tools they need to monitor, analyse, and report on wildlife health and threats, ensuring a sustainable future for Zimbabwe’s natural treasures.
At Mana Pools National Park, ranger coordinator Homage Ncube oversees the protection of one of Zimbabwe’s most precious wildlife sanctuaries. Yet monitoring this vast 2,200km² wilderness posed a significant challenge with traditional paper-based systems.
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We partnered with the National Parks to implement the SMART (Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool) system, a mobile tool that makes Homage’s work easier.
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It streamlines data recording, enables precise location tracking, and facilitated efficient trend analysis compared to previous paper notebooks. Now, historical data is easily tracked for continuous analysis.
37,800
ranger patrols carried out during the project period
▲ Blending traditional patrols with digital tools, we achieved over 460 arrests and 1,000 seizures of prohibited objects like snares.
38 → 1
Reduction of number of elephants lost to poaching between 2016 to 2023, owing to a combination of measures to deter poaching
▲ We introduced advanced technology for park protection: fixed-wing drones for aerial monitoring, and camera traps for real-time wildlife and intruder detection.
Zimbabwe Government coat of arms
This positive impact in national parks, wildlife conservancies, and communities in the Zambezi Valley was achieved with thanks to vital funding from the Global Environmental Facility and the Government of Zimbabwe; and implemented together with Zimbabwe Parks and Wildlife Management Authority, Forestry Commission, the Environmental Management Agency, and CAMPFIRE Association