A GIS or Geographical Information Systems captures, stores, analyzes, manages, and presents data that is linked to a location. A GIS is a method by which specialist mapping software  is applied to the areas of remote sensing, land surveying, aerial photography, photogrammetry, and many tools can be used together to make up the specific GIS solution that is needed for a specific project.

A GIS is an information system that integrates, stores, edits, analyzes, shares, and displays geographic information. GIS applications are tools that allow the user to create interactive queries, analyze spatial information, edit data, maps, and present the results of all these operations.

GIS is a powerful tool for collecting and collating datasets enabling consistency and continuity.  GIS is able to process varying types and amounts of data.  It allows the import of various monitoring data sets and statistical analysis of the data.

GIS technology can be used for resource management, asset management, archaeology, environmental impact assessment, urban planning, cartography, criminology, geographic history, marketing, logistics and other purposes. For example, GIS might allow emergency planners to easily calculate emergency response times (i.e. logistics) in the event of a natural disaster, GIS might be used to find wetlands that need protection from pollution, or GIS can be used by a company to site a new business location to take advantage of a previously under-served market.

Below are some of the areas that GIS is being applied in.

Environment:

• Conservation and Monitoring
• Planning and Policy
• Wetland management
• Wildlife management
• Forest management
• Water pollution
• Air pollution
• Land
• Climate change
• Renewable energy

Natural Resource Management:

• Mountain Environments
• Water resources
• Ocean Environments
• Coastal zone management

Sustainable Development:

• Future land use by analyzing past and present demographics
• Estimated future populations
• Projected climate change
• Future habitat change

Tourism Development and GIS:

• National park and Protected areas
• Planning and Zoning
• Visitor strategies
• Visitor management
• Urban Planning

Utilities:

• Infrastructure
• Services

The Greater Masai Mara Community Scout Programme

The programme in the Masai Mara National Reserve in Kenya was funded by The Darwin Institute for the Survival of the Species and organised by The Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology, University of Kent. Some 70% of Kenya's wildlife exists outside protected areas. Its survival depends on tolerance of wildlife and sustainable management of natural resources by the local communities who suffer the costs of living with wildlife. The Maasai communities of the Greater Mara Ecosystem have expressed a desire and willingness to develop their capacity to manage and protect the natural resources among which they live outside the Masai Mara National Reserve (MMNR).

The programme trained Kenyans to research and monitor human-wildlife conflict in the Masai Mara ecosystem, focusing on three main areas: the factors affecting the recovery of the black rhino population, the impact of tourism, and humanelephant conflict. Community based natural resource management for the conservation of Kenya's wildlife, forests, water resources, coral reefs and rangelands are becoming increasingly more critical as these resources are highly threatened.

The purpose of the programme was to empower Maasai communities throughout the greater Mara ecosystem to monitor and protect natural resources and manage humanwildlife conflict, and thereby improve local livelihoods, through the development of a sustainably funded community wildlife scout association. The main aim was local capacity building to monitor and protect biodiversity. The programme helps communities understand the importance of their environment and the resources on which they rely by promoting sustainable conservation based development. The mara is constantly under considerable threat from illegal hunting for the bushmeat trade. The project I was involved in concentrated on anti poaching operations, wildlife monitoring, preventing human wildlife conflict, bush fires and forest destruction. Scouts also served as an outreach function, informing the wider communityon conservation and land management issues.