The Niassa Special Reserve celebrated World Wildlife Day by holding a lecture for students at the Mecula Secondary School on 16 June (Mecula District Headquarters) where the main topic was the date’s motto for 2024 (Connecting People and Planet: Exploring Digital Innovation in Wildlife Conservation) having presented to this effect the importance of biodiversity and its threats arising from human action and having discussed with the young people the need to ensure people’s connectivity in digital innovation for wildlife conservation.
Students, members of government entities of the District of Mecula and NSR technicians who participated in the lecture
This lecture was remarkable because it also served to show young students the technological tools used for the preservation of biodiversity in the largest conservation area of Mozambique, namely the Ororatech software (for monitoring and control of fires); SMART (for collection, storage, analysis of biodiversity data as well as illegal activities and patrol/surveillance routes); EarthRanger (for integration and visualization of historical and real-time data available in the area, movement of animals with collars, patrols, burned, among other spatial data); the VHF Motorola radio system (for radio communication); Data tracking and collection devices such as GPS, collars and smartphones and even the laptops/PCs/Screens themselves for data visualization and analysis.
Paulino Bernardo, NSR Senior Wildlife Officer, during his interaction with students, explaining the importance of digital tools for wildlife conservation
On the occasion was also made a small exhibition of some initiatives of the Science Club where was presented a recreation of a drone capable of taking flight with remote control, built the base of recycled material and a prototype of an alarm system the invasion by animals in an area, also made based on recycled material. This activity was developed in partnership with partners of the District Government of Mecula and USAID Mozambique, and was attended by 80 young people, who study between the 7th and 12th grades.
In addition to this work that WCS and its partners have been developing at the level of the Niassa Special Reserve, it is also worth highlighting the developments in the use of digital tools that the Marine Program has been using to make its contribution to the protection of marine species in Mozambique.
WCS has introduced an innovative methodology called BRUV (remote underwater video search with bait) that allows non-invasive research with underwater cameras that use bait to attract and register marine animals. This is a methodology widely used around the world to assess the status of coastal populations of sharks and rays, estimate their abundance, identify present species, important areas and habitats, and identify "hotspots" of abundance.
WCS research using BRUVs on the Mozambican coast
To date, more than 1300 km of Mozambican coast has been researched using BRUVs, which allows to have detailed information on the diversity and relative abundance of coastal species of sharks and rays in certain areas of the coast. In 2021, the Oceanographic Institute of Mozambique and WCS undertook an expedition with the discovery of a species of shark (Pseudoginglymostoma brevicaudatum) in Inhambane Province (Bennett, et al., 2021) which allowed the extension of the geography of the species to be included in Mozambique.
Mozambique was specifically identified as one of the few global hotspots for the richness of shark and ray species (132 species confirmed to date) and a particularly important area for its conservation. Mozambican waters represent important areas globally in terms of evolutionary distinction and irreplaceability of species but are characterized by a high number of threatened species (about 49%) and a high proportion of species classified as deficient in the IUCN red list of endangered species. There are also a significant number of fisheries in this region, including artisanal fishing in coastal areas and industrial fishing further from the coast, which have impacts on shark and ray populations.