| European
Tropical Forest Research Network |
Internet workshop
7 - 25 January 2002, and
policy seminar 21
May 2002
convened by the Environmental Change Institute, University of Oxford
| Sasha Barrow |
Today saw the start of discussion of Theme 5: Synergy. The introduction to Theme 5 has been written by Izabella Koziell. As Izabella makes clear, the focus of Theme 5 is synergy between scientific biodiversity assessments and participatory ones: what is the potential and purpose, and what are the benefits and pitfalls? Is it possible to conduct biodiversity assessments with multiple stakeholders, such that all benefit?
In the workshop background paper four issues were put forward as important for achieving synergy:
Winfred Thomas picked up on the first issue, by turning the discussion towards the problems of intellectual property rights, trade, and communication between suppliers and users of information. Of course, it is those people who have extensive local knowledge about local biodiversity, who are very often the ones to use the information. However, there are other situations where local communities do not use this information for their own needs but share this knowledge with outsiders who do not necessarily say how they propose to use it. Winfred urges these outsiders to be open with holders of local biodiversity knowledge, and inform them of why they are collecting the knowledge, what they propose to do with it, what products might result, and what the expected value of this knowledge/product might be.
Winfred believes that with this knowledge of legal and economic aspects of local and global biodiversity, local communities will be encouraged to “know that their landscapes are mines of greengold”, and to participate in conservation activities.
Further to this point of communication of knowledge between stakeholder groups, we heard from Teeka Bhattarai on the importance of biodiversity education to producing synergy between scientific and local knowledge. In Teeka’s view, the scientific community has already begun to view biodiversity from the perspective of local communities and that it is beginning to know how this knowledge affects its opinions and decisions, but that “we do not (yet) know what (local) people would think when they know what we know”. To remedy this disparity, Teeka recommends education and discussion with local people on all aspects of biodiversity, including the threats and consequences of its loss.
We expect further discussion on this issue of interaction between suppliers and users of information, factors influencing this interaction, and ways in which linkages can be both supported and protected from misuse.
We heard from Doug Sheil on the subject of benefits from synergy. As a biologist, whose research has benefited from local knowledge, he sees local communities as an invaluable source of insight and information. Illustrating this view with a mapping case study from Kalimantan, Doug describes how local communities engaged in supplementing base maps with additional information on resources, ecology, and other key features. The resulting maps were enhanced greatly, presenting data that would otherwise have required massive investment to obtain. Local knowledge also assisted the sampling of different habitat types and sites. It appeared that special sites with special significance for local people were often also those containing vulnerable and restricted habitats and species, and therefore were of great interest to the biologists. This is a positive view of synergies from the scientist’s perspective. We join Doug in calling for other participants to provide information about synergies from a local perspective.
Teeka Bhattarai warns of the dangers of being too simplistic with our definitions of stakeholder groups. It is insufficient to simply differentiate scientists from non-scientists or from local people, and to see these groups as homogenous. It is important to remember that there is variation within each stakeholder group in the distribution of knowledge, power, and ability to get their views heard. Inevitably, it is harder for those who are less powerful to be acknowledged, and therefore they are more likely to bear more of the costs and receive less of the benefits of synergy.
Over the weekend, we saw further discussion of earlier themes…
Theme 3: Methods, Tools and Process. Jeannette van Rijsoort’s paper, detailing the use of three different biodiversity assessment and monitoring survey methods in Yunnan, aroused interest and discussion from a participant in India.
Richard Lowe has offered details of monitoring methods developed in Nigeria in the 1980s to study natural tropical high forest, with the objective of observing changes in forest tree populations.
Theme 4: Information needs of different stakeholders. From his perspective as Forest Policy Director of Forest Stewardship Council in Oaxaca, Mexico, Timothy Synnott listed three reasons why forest managers need biodiversity information: for management and sustainable use for forest areas, for compliance with national laws and regulations, and for supporting FSC certification applications. Aware of the high cost of extensive scientific surveys, he sees an urgent need for simple, low cost surveys that can be used by those responsible for managing small properties or community-owned forest.