Sabi Sand, a small Cisco connection, and how life closes a loop

Some places stay with you long after you have left the work around them.

Sabi Sand Nature Reserve, beside Kruger National Park in South Africa, is one of those places for me. I played a small role in the early days of Connected Conservation while I was at Cisco. I was never the person on the ground, and I was never at the centre of the project. But I was close enough to understand what was at stake.

At the time, rhino poaching in the area was brutal. In Sabi Sand, the reserve had reportedly been losing around one rhino a week. Rangers were working in a huge, remote area with limited communications, slow response times and opponents who knew the terrain.

Cisco and Dimension Data, now part of NTT DATA, helped build what became Connected Conservation. The idea was practical: connect the reserve well enough that rangers could see and respond to threats before another animal was killed.

That meant cameras, thermal imaging, perimeter sensors, secure communications, gate controls and a control room that could turn information into action. The project focused on tracking suspicious human movement rather than putting more devices into already stressed animals.

The reported results were remarkable. Rhino poaching fell by 96% in the first 18 to 24 months, and ranger response times dropped from more than 30 minutes to around seven. The project also reported periods without poaching in 2017 and 2018.

Those numbers matter. But the human side matters more.

Technology did not save rhinos by itself. Rangers, reserve management and people prepared to act on an alert did that work. Technology gave them better eyes, better information and a faster way to get to the right place.

I was very happy to learn that the project is still going. It has grown well beyond its first anti-poaching use case. The reserve now uses connected sensors and LoRaWAN networks to monitor wildlife, support reintroduced animals, understand behaviour and keep an eye on water points and other vital infrastructure. The original work has become part of how the reserve is managed.

Then life added a lovely little twist.

Last year, my wife Sigrun went on a retreat in Sabi Sand. Years after I had been involved in a small way through Cisco, she was there for an entirely different reason, experiencing the place itself.

I love that.

A project enters your professional life as a set of meetings, people, technology and a difficult problem. Then, years later, it turns up again through the person you love, in one of the most beautiful places on earth.

Sometimes the loop closes in a meeting room. Sometimes it closes in the bush.

I am glad Connected Conservation is still going. And I am glad Sabi Sand is still a place where people are working hard to keep the wildlife alive, free and worth protecting.

Sources: Cisco’s 2016 project announcement, Connected Conservation’s Sabi Sand project update, Cisco’s 2025 update.