Globally and daily, hundreds of thousands of wildlife rangers patrol wide areas, encountering all manner of plants, animals and signs of poaching like bushmeat snares or elephant carcasses.
The data rangers collect, and their intimate knowledge of the protected areas they patrol, constitute a treasure trove of valuable information that can guide the management of biodiversity.
Over and above these immediate results, we believe that the real value of our research lies in what it has taught us about the deep knowledge which rangers have of their areas, the wildlife within them, and how poachers work.
Before building our models, we individually interviewed several rangers and protected area managers to help us better understand the behaviour of three key agents: poachers, elephants, and the rangers themselves.
Our work shows that rangers are far more than the people who take on poachers at the frontline of conservation; they are also ecologists with a deep understanding of the areas they patrol.
