THE Cyber—Trackers - computerized recording of Bushmen's knowledge about animals helps protect African wildlife

Still, Liebenberg's motivations had as much to do with people as with animals. In preliminary tests in South Africa's Karoo National Park, trackers took to their new PalmPilots with ease--eager to transcend the boundaries of language and literacy and to have their new roles improve their status. Recording between 100 and 250 observations a day, they played a vital role in monitoring threats to the extremely rare black rhinos there. Their data showed how rhinos in the park changed their feeding habits as the seasons changed from wet to dry--information that could help park officials assist the rhinos in a severe drought.

Recently in the Karoo, five black rhinos that the trackers had been monitoring were moved from the region. "These original five rhinos were the desert subspecies of the black rhino. But then the powers that be decided to move these rhinos, and rhinos from East Africa that were in danger of being poached were moved in," says Liebenberg. "The scientists thought there would be no problem." But the trackers knew otherwise. The new rhinos, not adapted to the arid Karoo, weren't used to eating the same plants as their desert counterparts, and the transition wasn't as easy as expected.

Today Liebenberg runs tracker-training programs in eight South African parks, racing against time to locate the remaining highly skilled trackers from the San and other indigenous cultures and get them started training others. He foresees a network of tracker trainers spreading this almost lost knowledge as far as it can go. And indeed, that may be far--if the money holds out.

Two years ago, Liebenberg won a $50,000 Rolex Award for Enterprise for his innovation. He applied it all to enhancing the CyberTracker and getting new programs for it off the ground. But working in countries with scarce resources, he finds himself giving his product away. "We've sort of released the software, so people who can pay us pay, and people who don't have the money can use it anyway," says Liebenberg. "It's a struggle for me to survive financially."

His labor of both love and ingenuity might just turn things around. According to Howard Snell, a program leader at the Darwin Research Station in the Galapagos Islands, scientists there are considering using CyberTrackers to quickly and inexpensively measure changes in the distribution, number, and status of marine iguanas, Galapagos tortoises, and other native wildlife. They would also want to map the progress and impacts of introduced animals such as feral goats, pigs, dogs, and cats. And they hope to document the effects of unsustainable human use. The CyberTracker technology is attractive because people already in the field--park wardens, tourist guides, and local inhabitants--can use it with a minimum of training.

But not all scientists are willing to employ such democratic data collection measures. Field science has traditionally been restricted to the academically trained, and some don't want to see this change. Park managers have been far more enthusiastic about nonscientists recording their daily finds, says Liebenberg. Most field scientists are able to be in their study areas for only short periods of time, yet armies of rangers and others patrol park lands every day.