Participatory monitoring (also known as collaborative monitoring, community-based monitoring, locally based monitoring, or volunteer monitoring) is the regular collection of measurements or other kinds of data (monitoring), usually of natural resources and biodiversity, undertaken by local residents of the monitored area, who rely on local natural resources and thus have more local knowledge of those resources. Those involved usually live in communities with considerable social cohesion, where they regularly cooperate on shared projects.
Participatory monitoring has emerged as an alternative or addition to professional scientist-executed monitoring.ETFRN 2002. Participatory Monitoring and Evaluation of Biodiversity: Internet Workshop and Policy Seminar. Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, UK. Scientist-executed monitoring is often costly and hard to sustain, especially in those regions of the world where financial resources are limited. Moreover, scientist-executed monitoring can be logistically and technically difficult and is often perceived to be irrelevant by resource managers and the local communities. Involving local people and their communities in monitoring is often part of the process of sharing the management of land and resources with the local communities. It is connected to the devolution of rights and power to the locals. Aside from potentially providing high-quality information, participatory monitoring can raise local awareness and build the community and local government expertise that is needed for addressing the management of natural resources.
Participatory monitoring is sometimes included in terms such as citizen science, crowd-sourcing, 'public participation in scientific research' and participatory action research.
Definition
The term 'participatory monitoring' embraces a broad range of approaches, from self-monitoring of harvests by local resource users themselves, to censuses by local rangers, and inventories by amateur naturalists. The term includes techniques labelled as 'self-monitoring',Constantino, P. A. L., R. A. Tavares, J. L. Kaxinawa, F. M. Macário, E. Kaxinawa e A. S. Kaxinawa. 2012. Mapeamento e monitoramento participativo da caça na Kaxinawá da Praia do Carapanã Indigenous Land, Acre, Amazônia Brasileira. In: Sistema de informações geográficas e a conservação da biodiversidade. Paese, A., Uezu, A., Lorini, M. L., Cunha, A. (eds.). Oficina do Texto, São Paulo, Brasil. ranger-based monitoring', 'event-monitoring', 'participatory assessment, monitoring and evaluation of biodiversity',Lawrence, A. (Ed.). 2010. Taking Stock of Nature. Cambridge Univ. Press, Cambridge, UK. 'community-based observing', and 'community-based monitoring and information systems'.Tebtebba 2013. Developing and Implementing Community‐Based Monitoring and Information Systems: The Global Workshop and the Philippine Workshop Reports. http://tebtebba.org/index.php/all‐resources/category/8‐ books?download=890:developing‐and‐implementing‐cbmis‐the‐global‐workshop‐and‐ the‐philippine‐workshop‐reports.
Many of these approaches are directly linked to resource management, but the entities being monitored vary widely, from individual animals and plants,Burton 2012 through habitats,Nagendra H, Ostrom E. 2011. The challenge of forest diagnostics. Ecology and Society 16 (art. 20). (7 November 2013; http://www.ecologyandsociety.org/vol16/iss2/art20)NAILSMA (North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Ltd.). 2014. Looking After Country: The NAILSMA I-Tracker story. NAILSMA, Darwin, NT. goo.gl/Ng29co to ecosystem goods and services. However, all of the approaches have in common that the monitoring is carried out by individuals who live in the monitored places and rely on local natural resources, and that local people or local government staff are directly involved in formulation of research questions, data collection, and (in most instances) data analysis, and implementation of management solutions based on research findings.
Participatory monitoring is included in the term 'participatory monitoring and management' which has been defined as "approaches used by local and Indigenous communities, informed by traditional and local knowledge, and, increasingly, by contemporary science, to assess the status of resources and threats on their land and advance sustainable economic opportunities based on the use of natural resources". term 'participatory monitoring and management' is particularly used in tropical, Arctic and developing regions, where communities are most often the custodians of valuable biodiversity and extensive natural ecosystems.
Alternative definitions
Other definitions for participatory monitoring have also been proposed, including:
"The systematic collection of information at regular intervals for initial assessment and for the monitoring of change. This collection is undertaken by locals in a community who do not have professional training".Guijt, I. (ed.) 2007. Negotiated learning: Collaborative monitoring in forest resources management. Resources for the Future. Washington, D.C., USA.Evans, K. and Guariguata, M.R. 2008. Participatory monitoring in tropical forest management: a review of tools, concepts and lessons learned. Center for International Forestry Research. Bogor, Indonesia.
Likewise, the term 'community-based monitoring of natural resources' has been defined as:
"A process where concerned citizens, government agencies, industry, academia, community groups and local institutions collaborate to monitor, track, and respond to issues of common community concern".EMAN (The Ecological Monitoring and Assessment Network). 2003. Improving local decision making through community based monitoring: Toward a Canadian Community Monitoring Network. Ottawa: Environment Canada. http://publications.gc.ca/collections/collection_2014/ec/En40-883-2003-eng.pdf
"Monitoring of natural resources undertaken by local stakeholders using their own resources and in relation to aims and objectives that make sense to them".
"A process of routinely observing environmental or social phenomena, or both, that is led and undertaken by community members and can involve external collaboration and support of visiting researchers and government agencies".
Limitations
It has been suggested that participatory monitoring is unlikely to provide quantitative data on large-scale changes in habitat area, or on populations of cryptic species that are hard to identify or census reliably. It has also been suggested that participatory monitoring is not suitable for monitoring resources that are so valuable they attract powerful outsiders. Likewise, in areas where changes, threats, or interventions operate in complex fashions, where rural people do not depend on the use of natural resources and there are no real benefits flowing to the local people from doing monitoring work (or the costs to local people of involvement exceed the benefits), or where there is a poor relationship between the authorities and the local people, participatory monitoring is probably less likely to yield useful data and management solutions than conventional scientific approaches.
History
Whereas government censuses of human populations, which date perhaps to the 16th century B.C., were likely the first formal attempts at environmental monitoring, farmers, fishers and forest users have informally monitored resource conditions for even longer, their observations influencing survival strategies and resource use.
Participatory monitoring schemes are in operation on all the inhabited continents, and the approach is beginning to appear in textbooks.Sodhi, N.S. and Ehrlich, P.R. (Eds.). 2010. Conservation Biology for All. Oxford Univ. Press.Jones, J.P.G., Asner, G., Butchart, S.M. and Karanth, U. 2013. The 'why', 'what' and 'how' of monitoring for conservation. Pp. 329-343 in Macdonald, D.W. and Willis, K.J. (Eds.) Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2. Wiley-Blackwell, Oxford.
Conferences An international symposium on participatory monitoring was hosted by the Nordic Agency for Development and Ecology and the Zoology Department at Cambridge University in Denmark in April 2004. It led to a special issue of Biodiversity and Conservation October 2005.Danielsen F, Burgess ND, Balmford A, editors. 2005b. Special issue: Monitoring matters: examining the potential of locally-based approaches. Biodiv and Cons.14:2507-2820.
In the Arctic, a symposium on data management and local knowledge was hosted by ELOKA and held in Boulder, USA, in November 2011. It led to a special issue of Polar Geography in 2014.
In the Arctic, three circumpolar meetings were held in 2013-2014: In November 2013 in Cambridge Bay, Nunavut, hosted by Oceans North Canada, In December 2013 in Copenhagen, Denmark, hosted by Greenland Department of Fisheries, Hunting and Agriculture, ELOKA, and Nordic Foundation for Development and Ecology,Nordic Council of Ministers 2015. Local knowledge and resource management. On the use of indigenous and local knowledge to document and manage natural resources in the Arctic. TemaNord 2015-506. Nordic Council of Ministers, Copenhagen, Denmark. In March 2014 in Kautokeino, Norway, hosted by International Centre for Reindeer Husbandry, UNESCO and other partners.
The first global conference on Participatory Monitoring and Management was hosted by the Brazilian Ministry of Environment (MMA) and the Chico Mendes Institute for Biodiversity Conservation (ICMBio) and held in Manaus, Brazil in September 2014.Constantino, P.A.L. et al. in press. Monitoramento Participativo Da Biodiversidade E Dos Recursos Naturais: Seminário Internacional E Formação Da Rede Internacional De Monitoramento E Manejo Participativo. Biodiversidade Brasileira.
Approaches
Thematically, participatory monitoring has considerable potential in several areas, including: For connecting knowledge systems: in efforts to bring Indigenous and local knowledge systems into the science–policy interface such as the Intergovernmental Platform for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. For monitoring rapidly changing environments: to inform resource management in rapidly changing environments such as the Arctic,Gofman, V. 2010. Community based monitoring handbook: lessons from the Arctic. CAFF CBMP Report No. 21. CAFF, Akureyri, Iceland.Johnson, N. et al. 2015. Community-Based Monitoring in a Changing Arctic: A Review for the Sustaining Arctic Observing Network. Final report of Sustaining Arctic Observing Networks Task #9. Ottawa, ON: Inuit Circumpolar Council. where Indigenous and local communities have detailed knowledge of key components of their environment, such as sea-ice, snow, weather patterns,Nakashima, D. et al. 2012. Weathering Uncertainty – Traditional knowledge for climate change assessment and adaptation. United Nations University. Available at: http://unu.edu/publications/policy-briefs/weathering-uncertainty-traditional-knowledge-for-climate-change-assessment-and-adaptation.html caribou and other natural resources.Mustonen, T. And Mustonen, K. 2011. Eastern Sámi Atlas. SnowChange Cooperative, Vaasa, Finland.Berkes, F. (2012). Sacred Ecology (3rd ed.) Routledge. In Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs: to connect environmental performance with payment schemes such as REDD+.Skutsch, M. (Ed.). 2011. Community Forest Monitoring for the Carbon Market. Earthscan, London.Forest Compass 2015. Community monitoring in the Chico Mendes Extractive Reserve in Acre, Brazil http://forestcompass.org/case-studies/community-monitoring-chico-mendes-extractive-reserve-acre-brazilForest Compass 2015. Community-based forest monitoring in North Rupununi, Guyana http://forestcompass.org/case-studies/community-based-forest-monitoring-north-rupununi-guyana