Rolex Awards for Enterprise Laureate Louis Liebenberg has made it his life’s work to protect and cultivate the art of animal tracking and to support the indigenous communities that still practice it. This mission led him to develop CyberTracker, a piece of software aimed at preserving the ancient art of indigenous tracking by enabling trackers to monetize their skills in the field of conservation.

Thanks in part to Liebenberg winning a Rolex Award for Enterprise in 1998 for his work on CyberTracker, the digital tool found unforeseen popularity and unexpected uses. It has been downloaded over 600,000 times worldwide, in more than 200 countries, and been used for scientific research, citizen science, education, farming, social and health surveys, crime prevention and disaster relief. Now, Liebenberg is updating the mobile app to make it accessible to everyone from illiterate elders in remote communities to 10-year-old children. Through this work, he is making scientific research accessible so that everyone has the potential to make a real difference in the global effort against climate change.

Liebenberg still remembers his first tracking experience, playing hide-and-seek as a child among the dunes on a Cape Town beach. He recalls looking down to see footprints in the sand leading him right to his friend’s hiding place. From that day on, he was hooked on what the signs in nature could tell him. Many years later, his passion drove him to pack a few belongings and travel alone into the Kalahari to stay with the Ju/’hoansi, the indigenous peoples of that region. Here, he learned tracking from those who have relied on it for their survival for thousands of years. It was this work that drove him to create CyberTracker.

The CyberTracker software allows trackers to record their observations of plants and animals. The simplicity and versatility of the software have led it to be picked up by projects across the globe, from government-funded conservation work, to individual hobbyist trackers, to community-based projects.

Driven by a promise to a friend, Liebenberg also works directly with the indigenous groups still practising tracking. Liebenberg formed close ties to the communities he lived with and learned from in his youth. In 1990, !Nate, a skilled tracker and close friend of Liebenberg, asked him to do what he can to help the people of the Kalahari. Over 30 years ago, already much of the wildlife in the Kalahari had been decimated by fences that cut off migration routes and the Ju/’hoansi could no longer sustain their nomadic, subsistence lifestyle.

Across the globe, traditional skills are dying out. Disconnected from the land, youngsters are forced to leave their homes and ancestral teachings behind in search of often low-paid, low-skilled work simply to survive. Liebenberg has paired the CyberTracker software with an internationally recognized certification system designed to ensure traditional trackers are recognized for their unique skills. Now, these skills can be put to a new use. Working alongside conservation teams, certified trackers use the CyberTracker software to collect in-depth information about species in an area. The depth of knowledge that the trackers offer far surpasses what any tech-based imaging solution can offer.

Now, over 25 years since the Rolex Awards helped make CyberTracker a global phenomenon, Liebenberg is updating the software to create something even more accessible. CyberTracker Online is a piece of app-based software that brings together all the features required for data collection in a format accessible to everyone. Liebenberg has been out in the Kalahari user testing the new software with people from across the community.

With the launch of CyberTracker Online, tracking science is being put into everyone’s hands. The new software consolidates the core elements of CyberTracker and allows users to build an app tailored to their work. 

CyberTracker has already been picked up by citizen scientists across the globe, including projects that are getting children out into nature, such as the ToadNUTS project protecting the Western Leopard Toad in Cape Town and the BioKids project teaching children how to think scientifically in Michigan. 

The new approach to the software that CyberTracker Online offers will make developing such projects incredibly simple for anyone with a smartphone and access to a computer. With the continued support of the Rolex Perpetual Planet Initiative, Liebenberg is giving everyone the ability to make a real difference in protecting their local environment, and together, the future of our planet.

ABOUT THE PERPETUAL PLANET INITIATIVE
For nearly a century, Rolex has supported pioneering explorers pushing back the boundaries of human endeavour. The company has moved from championing exploration for the sake of discovery to protecting the planet, committing for the long term to support individuals and organizations using science to understand and devise solutions to today’s environmental challenges.

This engagement was reinforced with the launch of the Perpetual Planet Initiative in 2019, which initially focused on individuals who contribute to a better world through the Rolex Awards for Enterprise, on safeguarding the oceans as part of an established association with Mission Blue and on understanding climate change via its longstanding partnership with the National Geographic Society.

The initiative’s portfolio continues to expand with more than 20 partners including: 

Cristina Mittermeier and Paul Nicklen in their work as conservation photographers; Rewilding Argentina and Rewilding Chile, offspring organizations of Tompkins Conservation, which are protecting landscapes in South America; Coral Gardeners, transplanting resilient corals to reefs; the Under The Pole expeditions, pushing the boundaries of underwater exploration; and Steve Boyes and the Great Spine of Africa series of expeditions, exploring the continent’s major river basins.
 
Rolex also supports organizations and initiatives fostering the next generations of explorers, scientists and conservationists through scholarships and grants, such as Our World-Underwater Scholarship Society and The Rolex Explorers Club Grants.