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Paper short abstract:

This paper presents an analysis of the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) in Belize, and explores what happens when protected area management is increasingly "datafied" and decisions made not by humans but algorithms and artificial intelligence.

Paper long abstract:

This paper presents an analysis of the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool (SMART) and its use in terrestrial and marine protected areas in Belize. SMART is a software application used by park rangers on mobile communication devices that makes it possible to collect, store, share and analyze data on wildlife observations, poaching, arrests and other events in real-time. The most recent update to the platform (SMART 7) includes the rollout of “Predictive Patrol Planning,” which uses machine learning to predict poachers’ future behavior based on patrol records and data about the physical and human geography of the protected area. In 2018, Belize adopted SMART as the country’s official monitoring system for their protected area network. Significantly, the adoption of SMART in Belize has seemingly coincided with a shift away from a focus on community-based conservation toward an emphasis on surveillance technology, law-enforcement and combatting the illegal wildlife trade. Based on a literature review, as well as interviews and ethnographic fieldwork with protected area managers, this paper describes the impacts of the Spatial Monitoring and Reporting Tool, and the recent adoption of SMART 7, on the practice of protected area management in Belize. Framed theoretically as a transition from “intimate government” (Agrawal 2005) to algorithmic ontopower (Massumi 2015; Büscher 2018), this paper explores what happens as protected area management is increasingly "datafied" and decisions are made not by humans and local knowledge but by algorithms and artificial intelligence.