Okapi

Project

This 2005 project update document reports on the purchase of four satellite phones for ICCN (Institut Congolese por Conservation de la Nature) which have enabled patrols in the Okapi Wildlife Reserve to text message their GPS location along with a short message from anywhere in the Reserve. The base operator in Epulu can then call the patrol teams in an emergency, resulting in a much quicker response to threats to the Reserve. According to the report, this is the first known case of this technology being applied to a protected area in Africa.