Wildlife meets Wi-Fi

RHINOS: FOUNDATION IS REWIRING THE WILD FOR THE ANIMALS' SURVIVAL

- Arthur Goldstuck

It started with a rhino. Or more precisely, 45 of them. That was the grim annual toll of poaching in South Africa's Sabi Sands game reserve. Rangers were outmanned, outgunned, and overwhelmed.

Then came the network. Cameras, sensors, and servers took their place alongside rifles and radios. Within a year, the number of rhinos killed dropped by 96%.

"We went from 45 rhinos killed a year to a 96% reduction," says Sophie Maxwell, executive director of the Connected Conservation Foundation (CCF). "We were not just putting in technology to stop poaching. We were building a digital shield around parks.

"We've been working for nearly a decade to make the natural world visible with technology. When people can see what's happening in real time, they're much more empowered to protect it."

We are chatting in a media lounge at the Cisco Live 2025 conference in San Diego, a few hours after she'd wrapped up a standing-room-only panel. The audience had come for AI and hybrid work. They left talking about rhino.

Maxwell calls herself a conservation technologist. It's a term she helped invent for her job: to build tech systems that protect wildlife and ecosystems. Her challenge: do it with a team of six, mostly part-time, stretched across continents and time zones.

"We're a tiny non-profit," she pact, thanks to partnerships with organisations like Cisco."

The CCF was the brainchild of Bruce "Doc" Watson, co-founder of SA IT giant Dimension Data, now part of Japan's NTT DATA. He met Maxwell when she was leading the Zoological Society of London's Innovation Lab for Conservation and persuaded her to start the foundation with him.