Photo taken on Feb. 26, 2017 shows a zebra at the South Luangwa National Park in eastern Zambia's Mambwe district. South Luangwa National Park is one of Zambia's best known national parks and a major tourist attraction. (Xinhua/Peng Lijun)
LUSAKA, Feb. 9 (Xinhua) -- The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) will soon pilot a project on the use of drones for wildlife monitoring in Zambia.
The project is aimed at enabling wildlife authorities in the southern African nation to better detect and respond to poaching and other threats in its protected areas.
Eneya Phiri, head of communications and marketing at WWF Zambia, said the project came up following the decision by the government to produce guidelines on the use of drones.
"The publication of these guidelines provided an opportunity for the Zambian conservation sector to take advantage of recent advances in drone technology as cost effective and more efficient tools for surveillance, poaching threat detection and wildlife research applications," he said in a statement.
The technology, he said, will go a long way in complementing the efforts of wildlife authorities in protecting the country's iconic wildlife species.
The pilot project will target the Department of National Parks and Wildlife and six of its partners in five flagship national parks across the country, he added.
The project will also involve the training of wildlife officers on the use of drones for a wide range of conservation operations such as anti-poaching, wildlife aerial surveys, habitat monitoring and human-wildlife conflict mitigation, he said.