The Endangered Wildlife Trust and Transport Programme (EWT-WTP) has made available the Roadwatch South Africa app to help reduce the number of roadkill on the country's roads.
According to project executant at Roadkill Research and Mitigation, Wendy Collinson, the app is designed to identify areas where collisions between vehicles and wildlife or domestic livestock frequently occur, and record this data for the EWT-WTP to use in their work to reduce the impact of transport infrastructure on the country's wildlife.
"The app is available on smartphones and Android platform phones. Data ranging from the time of day a roadkill incident occurred, location and animal species is submitted by volunteers through social media forums such as the EWT's Facebook page, our roadkill research LinkedIn site and the EWT's blog," explains Collinson.
She adds this data has already enabled the organisation to identify some areas of concern and will provide the basis for implementing actions to reduce the impact that roads have on wildlife. It will also contribute towards national norms and standards for future road design, maintenance and improvement.
The app, she notes, is a way of identifying other roadkill hotspots similar to the Greater Mapungubwe Transfrontier Conservation Area (GMTFCA), in Limpopo Province, where studies done over a 120-day period detected 1 121 roadkill carcasses and identified 166 species. Birds were the most commonly detected species (52%), while mammals, reptiles and amphibians comprised 26%, 20% and 2%, respectively.
"With data recorded from citizens, we are able to cover a much wider geographical range and provide planners with scientific advice on how to minimise or mitigate negative environmental impacts of transportation," she says.
Collinson further adds that although SA has a legislative framework that facilitates environmental impact assessment for the development and upgrading of roads, these tools have not been optimally applied. This is due to the lack of capacity to ensure compliance and enforcement, and a poor understanding of the real impacts of these activities.
"This has negative consequences for both people as well as South Africa's wildlife," she adds.
Roadkill itself is not the only problem, notes Collinson. Loss of habitat, habitat fragmentation, degradation of habitat, road and railway avoidance, increased human exploitation, reduced access to habitats, population fragmentation and disruption of processes that maintain regional populations are just some of the ways in which roads and railways can affect biodiversity.
Collinson says while SA is fundamentally different to Europe and North America, application of the information and lessons learned in developed countries should be explored within the African wildlife framework.
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