Technology appropriation through Co-design of Conservation Management tools by Indigenous communities.

Conservation management is of utmost importance because it makes an effort to ensure that all living organisms within a conservancy are able to live together progressively. It also promotes sustainable use of conservancy resources. Conservancies in the Skeleton Coast Iona Transfrontier Conservation Area (TFCA) face several challenges when it comes to the management of ecosystem’s and wildlife within the TFCA. Challenges include Human Wildlife Conflict (HWC) and insufficient monitoring of conservancy resources such as wildlife and valuable flora.

In recent years, different types of wildlife monitoring technologies have been developed however there are issues when it comes to the adoption and sustained use of such technology. The current TFCA ecosystem and wildlife management methods seem to be inadequate. As a result, the Skeleton Coast Iona (SCIONA) project, which aims to strengthen cross-border ecosystem management and wildlife protection through co-designing and implementing conservation monitoring technology, was commissioned. Considering that most technologies were developed in the absence of indigenous communities’ input, although they are the target user group, we postulate that technology appropriation has to be facilitated through a systematic co-design process and reflective joint meaning making process.