Core Functional Areas
Key domains your system should support.
| Domain | Why It Matters | Key Capabilities |
|---|---|---|
| Crime & Anti-Poaching | Constant threats require detection and response. | Incidents, patrols, sensors, evidence, offenders, GIS hotspots, analytics. |
| Wildlife Population | Understand population dynamics and health. | Species catalog, surveys, camera traps, telemetry, movement models, trends. |
| Land & Habitat | Manage zones, habitats, infrastructure, and risk. | GIS layers, zoning, change detection, fire risk, water points, assets. |
| Visitor & Tourism | Support operations and revenue. | Permits, bookings, gate tracking, facilities, scheduling, density heatmaps. |
| Community & Stakeholders | Engage communities and manage HWC. | Permits, benefit sharing, complaints, outreach, citizen science. |
| Compliance & Permits | Align with laws and reporting duties. | Legal database, licenses, automated checks, audits, EIA integration. |
| Finance & Resources | Plan budgets and track revenue/costs. | Budgeting, revenue, costs, allocations, grants, financial reporting. |
| Human Resources | Manage field staff and safety. | Personnel, scheduling, performance, training, payroll, incidents. |
| Logistics & Assets | Track equipment and maintenance. | Asset register, maintenance, inventory, fuel, procurement, tracking. |
| Analytics & Dashboards | Drive decisions with data. | KPIs, trends, spatial analysis, exports, access control, open data. |
| Alerts & Early Warning | Respond quickly to events. | Perimeter breaches, sensors, HWC alerts, water/fire/disease warnings. |
| Interoperability | Integrate with external systems. | GIS, satellite, law enforcement, mobile apps, donors, APIs. |
| Security & Audit | Protect sensitive data. | RBAC, audit logs, offline sync, encryption, backups, 2FA. |
Zimbabwe Context
- Parks & Wildlife Act: align permits and protections.
- CAMPFIRE & AA: devolved rights and benefit sharing.
- Designations: national parks, safari areas, sanctuaries.
- Human–Wildlife Conflict: GPS tracking, alerts, mitigation.
- Population Management: thresholds, culling, translocation logs.
- Offline Support: field data capture without connectivity.
- Localization: English, Shona, Ndebele; intuitive UI.
- Donor Reporting: align to funder metrics.
- Data Sharing: GBIF, IUCN, Wildlife Insights; Darwin Core.
- Citizen Science: public sightings and reports.
Architecture Recommendations
- Modular services, GIS-first with PostGIS.
- Mobile-first offline apps with sync.
- AI/ML for image recognition and anomaly detection.
- Cloud scalability and API interoperability.
- Role-based access control.
Suggested MVP
- Incident/Crime reporting + patrol planning
- Wildlife observation capture
- GIS map viewer + zoning
- Dashboards & analytics
- User management & access control
- Offline field app sync
References: ZimParks legislation, CAMPFIRE program, AP News, Reuters, Wildlife Insights.