WILDLIFE | CRIME | TOURISM 

FORT PORTAL - To empower investigative Journalists with more information on wildlife conversation, a digital tool to map wildlife crimes has been launched. 

The WildEye East Africa, a digital geojournalism tool which was developed by InfoNile in partnership with Oxpeckers, collects and shares data on legal interventions against wildlife trafficking.

While launching the digital tool on Wednesday, Fredrick Mugira, the Vision Group senior news producer and Founder Water Journalists Africa said, the map contains stories from different websites, Newspapers and Uganda Wildlife Authority, among others.

The tool maps data on seizures, arrests, court cases and convictions in Uganda, Kenya, Tanzania and Rwanda.

"This information is very important for Journalists because you have evidence. When you analyze this data, you will see that during the COVID-19 pandemic, cases involving trafficking reduced but immediately when flights opened, the cases went up. This means that traffickers started trafficking wildlife outside Uganda," Mugira said.

He further said during COVID-19 lockdown, poaching increased because communities wanted to survive, so they went into protected areas to poach, adding that all this information can be got from the digital map.

Fredrick Mugira, the Vision Group senior news producer and founder Water Journalists Africa speaks during the launch of WildEye East Africa at Nyaika Hotel in Fort Portal. (All Photos by Violet Nabatanzi)

InfoNile is a cross-border group of geojournalists with a mission to uncover critical stories on water issues in the Nile River Basin through data-based multimedia storytelling.

The event which took place at Nyaika Hotel in Fort Portal attracted journalists, editors and scientists from research and knowledge institutions such as Earth Journalism Network, International Union for Conservation of Nature and TRAFFIC International.

Jane Shuma, the Behaviour Change Manager at Traffic East Africa office said data is vital because it can empower informed decisions and helps in making strategic decisions and approaches as a country or EA regional bloc.

TRAFFIC is a leading non-governmental organization working globally on trade in wild animals and plants in the context of both biodiversity conservation and sustainable development.

TRAFFIC, together with International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) implement a project on Conserving Natural Capital and enhancing collaborative management of transboundary resources in East Africa (CONNECT).

The CONNECT project is implemented in three countries in East Africa Tanzania, Kenya and Uganda, with the support from USAID.

Kiundu Waweru Project Manager, East African Media Coverage of Conservation and Wildlife at Internews Earth Journalism Network said the tool will help Journalists tell their stories better. 

‘’The tool is a resource material be it for print, Radio or TV Journalists,’’ Waweru said.