Protected areas and disparate data: understanding geospatial data synthesis in poaching mitigation

Wildlife poaching remains a global threat to endangered species and human health, yet knowledge gaps remain. As new geospatial technologies are developed, evaluated, and put into practice in protected areas we need to know how protected areas synthesize geospatial data derived from these technologies. In this article, we evaluate results from a survey of protected area personnel and from in-depth interviews with personnel from two protected areas. Our structured survey focused on identifying workflows, characterizing the use of geospatial technologies, understanding how geospatial information is synthesized, and learning about the geospatial tools used by practitioners to make sense of protected area data. In addition, we conducted semi-structured interviews with protected area practitioners to provide added context to complement online survey results. We investigate how geospatial data from protected areas is synthesized by practitioners through the collection, organization, analysis, and fusion of geospatial datasets to support the protection of endangered species from poaching activities. Our results show how protected areas currently utilize two key types of geospatial data: device-based and human-generated. We highlight five themes which emerge via analysis of survey, interview, and observational data. These themes include organizational bureaucracy, trust in data collection and sharing, technical limitations, workforce limitations, and financial stressors. We conclude by outlining a series of challenges and opportunities in geographic information science to guide further research to understand geospatial synthesis in the context of protected area management.