GBW Stories
Over the past two years, under the Tech4Nature partnership, IUCN, Huawei, Kenya Wildlife Service, the Wildlife Research and Training Institute, and the Kenya Marine and Fisheries Research have partnered to design technology-enabled solution for real-time coral reef ecological monitoring at the Kisite–Mpunguti Marine Park and Reserve, complementing the conventional methods and advance data and evidence-driven management actions for protection of this vital ecosystem.
A co-creating exercise with a lot of lessons learned, from community engagement and perspectives, to understanding site bathymetry and tidal regime, the journey has been full of adaptive actions before the final design was agreed upon, fabricated and deployed.
The solution was finally installed in March 2026 an involves obtaining real-time footage of the reef system and its health extrapolated over time by analysing coral cover and biomass of indicator species. This is made possible by installed underwater cameras at lower Mpunguti coral garden that are linked to a control unit in a floating platform powered by complete solar unit. This complements the usual Underwater Visual Census which can be expensive and limited to human ability.
Now functional, with volumes of footage recorded, a time-series analysis will enable the park management to understand reef health over seasons for tailored interventions.
What next after deployment?
- Data processing workshops using available tools and explore AI models for fish identification and coral cover analysis
- Point-to-point connection between the floating platform at sea and data centre at the Kisite-Mpunguti Marine Park and Reserve offices for real-time visualization of the footage.
- Explore various applications of the footage including virtual tourism.
- Documenting learning for potential upscaling of the solution
- Tech4Nature is a global partnership launched by Huawei and International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) to scale up success in nature conservation through technological innovation
