Estate Living Magazine Issue 30 Smart Environments June 2018 | Page 49

CyberTracker is a ground-breaking
initiative that has garnered numerous
awards for its inventors"
‘rhino’ next to it. Think back to how you learned to read. A nice,
big colourful book with a picture of a cat and the word C-A-T
printed out underneath it. Granted, it takes a bit longer when
you’re older, but it is an ongoing learning process.
Louis Liebenberg
the field, and what the trackers provided was not raw data. They
were results. The trackers were interpreting the data so that they
could be further manipulated. For this reason, he named both
these trackers as co-authors on the paper they published in the
journal Pachyderm. This was proof of Liebenberg’s major thesis
– that non-literate trackers can do science.
The CyberTracker has produced a number of unexpected
advantages. Benadie, who was one of the first to benefit from the
device, says that it helped him to improve his tracking skills in
two ways. Firstly, because he was recording everything he saw,
he paid attention to small signs he may have previously ignored
and, secondly, he was inspired to accurately record everything
as he knew that his children would one day be able to see his
work. Interestingly, he says it also helped him in learning to read.
The CyberTracker is icon-based, but the name of the animal is
printed out next to the icon on the screen. So, as Benadie clicks
on the icon for, for example, a rhino, he also reads the word
This was just the first step in the process of creating recognition
for professional trackers, and it has contributed immensely to job
creation, ecotourism and conservation. But, in the decades since
its inception, CyberTracker has proved to be much, much more
widely applicable than Liebenberg could ever have imagined. It
is being effectively used in wildlife management, disaster relief,
crime prevention, farming, and environmental management
both in South Africa and abroad, and it’s contributed immensely
to the growth and development of citizen science, as it allows
non-scientists to gather data about – for example – birds, or
leopard toads.
CyberTracker is basically a way of accurately, effectively and
quickly gathering and recording spatial data so it can be used in
practically any application, and the almost ubiquitous ownership
of smart phones makes it now widely accessible. As it can be
used on virtually any scale it’s perfect for collecting all kinds of
data about the condition of residential estates – spots of erosion,
broken lights, animal sightings – almost anything. Once it’s
downloaded the data can be manipulated in a number of ways,
making it a truly superb management tool. The software is
available for free download on the CyberTracker website.
By Jennifer Stern
Part of this article was
originally published on
mediaclubsouthafrica.com
Louis Liebenberg
Rolex/ Eric Vandeville
www.cybertracker.org
www.estate-living.co.za | 47