At Great Plains Conservation, our mission has always been clear: to expand and enhance natural habitats while safeguarding the biodiversity that depends on them.
A small, internal team has been quietly and diligently exploring how data from space can support that mission for the last three years.
This has involved numerous conversations, understanding this new data collection process – its impacts and opportunities, long hours spent analysing satellite imagery, trialling methodologies, and considering how to integrate this advanced technology with traditional fieldwork.
Our goal has always been clear: to transform raw data across multiple variables into actionable insights that enhance our understanding of conservation from a broader perspective, thereby bolstering the work our teams are currently doing on the ground.
Our partnership with Sylva in Germany, experts in analysing nature data, enables us to interpret unprecedented data and access a variety of analytic capabilities. This collaboration resulted in our being selected as one of only 18 priority regions for Planet’s Project Centinela, marking an exciting new chapter in this journey.
We now have daily access to high-resolution imagery, allowing us to build on the foundation we have established. This enables us to pose new, different, and challenging questions in conservation. To incorporate new insights from climate modelling and species movements, scrutinise our practices on the ground, evaluate how we have positively contributed to protecting biodiversity in our operating areas, and measure the positive impact of wildlife reintroductions.
Together, these insights form a more complete and dynamic picture of how Africa’s ecosystems respond to care and protection.
A New Lens on Biodiversity
Planet operates the largest fleet of Earth observation satellites, capturing detailed images of anywhere on Earth, every day.
For Great Plains Conservation and our Foundation, this calibre of monitoring provides new indicators and opportunities in understanding:
- The long-term vegetation health of areas like the private Sapi Reserve in Zimbabwe.
- A deeper level of habitat structure and evolution.
- Critical water dynamics for both wildlife and humans.
- Species-level insights, such as animal corridors and migration patterns across interconnected landscapes
Tracking Biomass in Sapi and the Surrounding Zambezian Mopane Woodlands Biome
From Data to Action
The satellites, particularly those now accessible through Project Centinela, provide images with a resolution of only 3.5 metres. This marks a significant advancement from the 10-metre mapping we examined just a few years ago.
This sharper view, combined with Planetary Variables (depicted below) derived from optical and infrared spectral data, provides an extraordinary lens on vegetation health, soil chemistry, and overall ecosystem vitality.
For us, the advantages are instant.
These snapshots enhance anti-poaching patrols, identify landscapes that require restoration, and provide valuable insights into how to secure water resources and vegetation areas effectively. They also enable us to identify areas of potential environmental concern, allowing us to deploy resources in a timely and most effective manner.
These insights enable us to incorporate this information into our existing thorough monitoring processes, ultimately leading to enhanced long-term biodiversity custodianship. Most importantly, it enables our teams to act precisely and confidently, guided by evidence that is unaffected by opinion or human bias.
As first movers, we are creating the world’s most advanced savanna management model by integrating daily data with our team’s expertise, enabling precise, evidence-based action to secure long-term biodiversity.
From Indicators to Management Plans: Targeted Interventions for Soil Health
Collaboration in Conservation
For us, this is more than just data. It is a way to add scientific clarity to the intuition and on-the-ground work practices of our field teams, to spot trends before they become crises, and to measure success where only instinct and limited insights once guided us. It is a continuation of who we are and what we do, not a departure, where we build on years of field science, expanding our understanding of the natural world, and ensuring that Great Plains remains at the forefront of data-driven biodiversity conservation in Africa.
Looking Ahead
From elephants splashing at the Zambezi’s edge to lions padding across floodplains and mopane woodlands, satellites now help us observe Africa’s rhythms in ways never before possible. What began three years ago as an exploration into the potential of space-based data has developed into one of the most innovative conservation programmes on the continent.
By investing in understanding the science behind the imagery, we have laid the foundation for the future: integrating climate models, tracing the migration routes of herds, and monitoring the ripple effects of reintroducing species into protected areas. This is not merely monitoring. It enables us to anticipate, adapt, and shape conservation efforts with exceptional precision.
Great Plains is proud to be leading the way in data-driven conservation innovation, demonstrating how each decision we make enhances biodiversity and secures the future of Africa’s wild spaces.
Using satellite-sourced information to understand how we positively influence the areas where we operate is possible through the leadership and innovative philosophy of Dereck Joubert, CEO and Chairman of Great Plains (which encompasses both Great Plains Conservation and the Great Plains Foundation). Dereck’s commitment to investing time and resources, along with encouraging his teams to challenge their imagination through a “what if” mindset, transformed what was once a dream into today’s reality. The project now progresses under Hilton Walker’s guidance, with support from Jamie Denton, Georgie Hextall, and the Great Plains Foundation’s field research teams, in collaboration with Marc Maleika and Michael Hyland of Sylva in Germany.
Together, this partnership is advancing and strengthening our conservation efforts by turning data into meaningful action on the ground.
