The Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program had a week-long workshop in early September on its “Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool” (SMART).
This is a software primarily focused on tracking, analysing, reporting spatial data, providing critical insights for informed decision-making regarding specific locations.
The workshop was led by the Research & Monitoring Coordinator Dillion Nason in Gomdan village, Morobe Province.
Tree Kangaroo Conservation Program told PNG HAUSBUNG that the initiative uses a combination of specialized software, instruction, and patrolling criteria to improve conservation efforts.
“SMART is essential for observing animals, spotting hazards, and improving patrol operations.”
The training session was attended by Conservation Liaison Officers or COs and Rangers from the Nambis and Uruwa zones in the YUS conservation area.
It was a crucial component of SMART’s adaptive management process since it helped rangers and technical officers effectively communicate while addressing problems with SMART models or while on patrol.
The training time also helped technical officers resolve any software issues and come up with appropriate patrol plans for each team in the area.
They also had the opportunity to review their previous data collection, identify areas for improvement, and continue to implement improvement strategies.
This training course marked the second training session, following the success of the first program held in 2022.
Ranger Robson Soseng, a Lower Uruwa Ranger expressed his delight towards the workshop.
“I am very happy with the current addition and introduction of SMART Patrol Plans, also what I learnt earlier this year during Refresher, I went away and practiced and now with the debrief it helps even more to correct my mistakes and become better. With the knowledge on how to transfer patrol data with our COs, this will make our work easier, phones will be with us rather sending it to Lae for data download,”
The workshop proved instrumental in assisting Conservation Liaison Officers and Rangers in organizing files, seamlessly transferring patrol data from phones to laptops, and ensuring the proper installation and configuration of the SMART application on smart phones.
Additionally, conservation liaison officers were trained in editing SMART models on laptops and sending them to Rangers’ phones.
Conservation officer of Upper Uruwa, Gomdan, James Jio expressed his appreciation towards the workshop helping him to implement technology into his work.
“This program has helped me understand what SMART does and how the data that my Rangers collect benefit our system as a whole, I got to learn how to deal with first hand technical issues; re-installing SMART Application, editing SMART packages and transferring it into my Rangers phone, transfer data from their phones into our field laptop and above all, I can also do monitoring in the livelihood area as I have install SMART into my phone.”
“I believe this approach will alleviate the long-standing problem of communicating data and field equipment with the Lae office. If all commanders started participating in SMART interviews there would be better