Case Study: Peace Parks Foundation achieves AI-powered real-time anti-poaching monitoring with Microsoft Azure

Unlocking new age conservation in South Africa with AI

Peace Parks Foundation (PPF) is a South Africa–based nonprofit established in 1997 that develops and safeguards transfrontier conservation areas across Southern Africa. After a brutal poaching epidemic beginning in 2008 threatened African rhinos, PPF launched the Rhino Protection Programme to deploy technological anti-poaching solutions, intelligence-led investigations, and demand-reduction campaigns to stop the illegal rhino horn trade.

Using Microsoft Azure, PPF built a “smart park” at Hluhluwe–iMfolozi that combines AI-enabled camera traps and sensor feeds to analyze static and video images in real time, automatically flagging high‑risk activity and sending location and movement alerts to rangers. The cloud-based system is easy and relatively inexpensive to deploy, reduces false positives, improves scalability and maintenance, and is being expanded with Microsoft grants to democratize AI so rangers can configure visual feeds and respond more effectively to poaching.

Peace Parks Foundation

Werner Myburgh

Chief Executive Officer