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‘’The partnership between Netstar and Toyota South Africa is a testament to our shared commitment to conserving wildlife and protecting the environment. Toyota’s South Africa is proud to partner with Netstar’s technology and the project is yielding stellar results as we strive to eradicate rhino poaching.”
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Toyota South Africa is an automobile manufacturer that is a subsidiary of Toyota dedicated and committed to supplying a range of vehicles, parts, accessories and services to meet the requirements of the South African and export markets that it services. They have roughly 260 branches throughout the country. Netstar fits approximately 12 000 wi-fi boxes with telematics information per month and they fit approximately 2500 - 3000 stolen vehicle recovery units per month for Toyota South Africa.
But the Toyota SA and Netstar relationship goes beyond this to assist the Pilanesberg Wildlife Trust to eradicate rhino poaching and improve the safety of anti-poaching units, and game rangers in the Pilanesberg National Park.
Toyota South Africa has been a major funder and supporter of mass dehorning projects since 2017 and in addition, has donated vehicles, rebuilt vehicles and provided essential ongoing maintenance services. The vehicles in the anti-poaching unit fleet have been fitted with specially created connected tracking devices that collect over 440 000 datapoints daily. These not only assist with efforts to protect the rhinos, but we are also able to protect the anti-poaching unit who put their lives at risk to safeguard them.
Netstar Group Managing Director, Grant Fraser highlights Netstar’s ongoing commitment to this initiative: “We are honoured to contribute our advanced vehicle tracking technology and data insights, to help safeguard rhinos from the devastating threat of poaching. At Netstar we believe in leveraging our expertise to make a positive impact on the world around us, and this partnership with Toyota South Africa perfectly aligns with our commitment to conservation and the environment.”
The vast 572 square kilometre Pilanesberg is a significantly large area to monitor and track animals daily. The rhino-protection project required a sophisticated resource to help enhance the efforts to protect the rhino and the team members in the unit.
Netstar’s vehicle tracking units are equipped to collate significant and meaningful data sets – 440 000 critical data sets, which when analysed alongside Netstar’s heat map technology, provide valuable insights into vehicle movements and patterns to better understand the utilisation of the anti-poaching unit and support their efforts to efficiently manage and allocate their resources.
The outcome of Toyota SA and Netstar harnessing the power of human ingenuity, technology and data, uniquely solves real-world problems in conservation and protects these magnificent creatures while enabling the efforts of the dedicated teams of people, who are committed to safeguarding the future of the rhino, among other species under threat.
