National Geographic grantee and ethologist Joyce Poole uses citizen science and Web technology to bring elephant conservation into the 21st century through her project properly titled "Elephant Partners." With the aim to create a network of those people who care about the conservation of elephants, no matter where in the world they might be in relation to the elephants themselves, Poole and her team at Elephant Voices created the Who's Who database as well as the Mara Name an Elephant program, which is featured as an Android app and on social media through Facebook. The programs allow concerned citizens to track the whereabouts of identified elephants in the Mara. Participants can also upload their own gathered information in the database and make financial donations to the project.
"Elephant Partners is an ambitious project working in a cross border ecosystem on a population of several thousand elephants and many challenges lie ahead...but the early results are promising and the method we've pioneered provides a way to engage people in the conservation of biodiversity," Poole states.
Sources: National Geographic, Elephant Voices
