Chapter 2: GPD Plan of Action

With Global Park Defense, the park authority and ranger teams will have increased capacity and improved effectiveness to escalate park and wildlife protection, law enforcement, and biodiversity monitoring. Our goal is to achieve “No Cut, No Kill” protection for each park/World Heritage Site within 5-6 years.

Global Park Defense is a scalable system with technology and training tailored to each park, dramatically increasing the effectiveness of rangers and park authorities to protect their world heritage. We use technology to fill the void created by lack of personnel and resources.

Working directly with park authorities, local communities, park ranger teams, law enforcement, and the military, we deploy an integrated program that involves Threat Assessment, a Solutions and Protection Plan, System Deployment, Annual Evaluation of Progress, and finally an Exit Strategy.

1. Threat Assessment: Global Conservation begins with a detailed Threat Assessment. We work with leading experts to identify the most threatened wildlife and core habitats. This assessment combines local knowledge and community inputs with data gathered from cellular trailcams, satellites, drones and advanced mapping.

2. Solutions and Protection Plan: Every national park or protected area will have problems unique to its flora and fauna. Protecting ecosystems on two different continents will likely call for greatly different approaches. Although equipment and general technique will be the same, the approach and implementation will vary. We create a plan that most benefits that area and gives us the best opportunity to achieve our goals for protection, conservation, and sustainability. See Appendix A for an example of a 4-year budget and protection plan.

3. System Deployment: It is important that all rangers, tech support personnel, and management are trained on equipment before it is deployed. Areas of interest need to be identified and recorded to determine locations for surveillance equipment, patrol and maintenance routes, and nearby trails.

4. Annual Evaluation of Progress: In order to measure the success of our Global Park Defense system, we must establish a baseline. We first determine what the statistics are for the area we are targeting during the “Threat Assessment” phase. We then do an initial evaluation at six months and a yearly review to track progress. We analyze relevant photos, interdictions, arrests, and prosecutions. Proper adjustments in strategy will then be made based on the data collected during the evaluation and review phase.

5. Exit Strategy: Sustainability is a major factor when selecting a project. It is important that we develop a plan to ensure sustainability once we complete a successful Global Park Defense set-up and implementation project. The Global Park Defense strategy is a low-cost, highly effective program if deployed correctly and can be sustainable, even in underfunded parks, with proper planning. This often involves leaving a revenue stream and funding structure in place to support the project upon our exit.