A Multicountry Assessment of Tropical Resource Monitoring by Local Communities

Background

The study compared data collected on status and trends collected independently by local community members and trained scientists for 63 taxa and five types of resource use in 34 tropical forest sites over 2.5 years so examine the assumption that local people are less objective than external scientists when monitoring natural resources.

Conclusions & Takeaways

The study found that the community members and the scientists actually produced similar results for the status and trends in species and resources despite considerable differences in cultures and the types of natural resources monitored. The main comparison was between community member patrol records and scientists’ line-transects.  Similarity in results was greatest when the monitoring followed similar pathways and occurred soon after one-another.  Monitoring results were most different when very different paths were taken and the there was greater time gaps between the community and scientists’ monitoring.