How to hand high-tech tools to community conservationists

From the newsletter

Communities around Rwanda’s Volcanoes National Park are set to benefit from a new conservation project that puts environmental DNA technology directly in their hands. The initiative will train residents in advanced wildlife and habitat monitoring, in a move to strengthen community-driven conservation and biodiversity science. 

• The African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and the TUI Care Foundation have launched the two-year programme that will benefit communities and university students in one of Africa’s most celebrated conservation landscapes. 

• Over one hundred community members will be trained and equipped to monitor wildlife and habitats using eDNA sampling and satellite tools to capture vital data on species and ecosystem health. Their findings will feed into a cloud-based platform designed to provide real-time insights for conservation managers.

More details

• The eDNA technology collects genetic material from soil and water and will allow scientists and local monitors to track biodiversity with greater accuracy. The method can detect species that are otherwise hard to observe and offer a clearer picture of ecosystem changes in a park under pressure from human development and climate change. When combined with satellite imagery, the approach gives conservationists a more powerful toolkit to anticipate threats and plan for the park’s long-term resilience.

• Young people are also a priority under this initiative. Two hundred students from ten local schools will take part in debates, competitions and park visits designed to foster a culture of conservation. In partnership with the University of Rwanda, young professionals will receive specialised training in eDNA analysis, helping to build a new generation of scientists skilled in advanced biodiversity monitoring techniques.

• The project is delivered with the support of the Dian Fossey Gorilla Fund, the Rwanda Development Board, the University of Rwanda’s Centre for Biodiversity and the International Gorilla Conservation Programme. It builds on a similar collaboration between AWF and the TUI Care Foundation in Kenya’s Tsavo landscape that has been supporting students and communities for conservation. 

• Rwanda is the first country in Africa to put eDNA technology directly in the hands of local communities in a sustained monitoring & decision-making role. Previous examples in Africa, such as rural schoolchildren joining a UNESCO-led eDNA sampling expedition in South Africa, involved participation of just students without long-term ownership of the process. 

• In 2019, a study funded through Genome and conducted by researchers from McGill University and  the University of Johannesburg used eDNA metabarcoding to survey bacterial diversity in Kruger National Park waterholes. The project identified environmental pathogens in a purely academic exercise without community involvement, aimed at establishing baseline data for conservation science.

• In the Rwanda project, community monitors will collect soil and water samples, record wildlife observations and combine them with satellite data through a shared cloud platform. This system ensures local knowledge directly informs conservation planning, while continuous training and data verification safeguard quality.

Our take

• This programme opens powerful opportunities for communities in Africa, but eDNA isn’t plug-and-play. Field teams must master contamination-free sampling and labs need skilled DNA and sequencing expertise

• Success will depend on rigorous training and translating complex science into practical conservation insights.