| 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
| Bianca Ambrose-Oji |
Today saw participants continue with their discussions about the possibilities of finding synergy combining methods and techniques, value systems and perspectives, and multiple objectives. In her summary yesterday Sasha Barrow directed us to concentrate on two central questions:
Participants rose to the challenge, and some common issues emerged from the postings.
Miriam van Heist focused her attention on illustrating the benefits of mutual understanding fostered by research that combines community level perspectives and priority setting with accepted scientific techniques. Referring to work undertaken by Patricia Shanley, Miriam emphasises the benefits that communities gained from identifying the key species that should be included in resource assessments. By making the assessment process relevant in this way, communities recognised the wider value of their local biodiversity, and because researchers adapted the data gathered from those assessments so that everybody in the community could understand the results, the community then used the results effectively to decide upon their own resource management choices.
Doug Sheil wondered whether it was the role of researchers to act as facilitators in communicating knowledge not between scientists and communities, as in Miriam's example, but between communities and policy makers if real synergy in purpose is to be achieved.
Jenny Wong highlighted a point also made by Miriam, that a positive synergy is not necessarily the creation of a new dataset. Assessment approaches themselves may prompt communities to re-examine the nature of their environment and the breadth of their own knowledge, and then to question how each are changing, which can lead to new community reflections on the importance of biodiversity. This links back to some further comments on the nature of values and what is valued discussed by Doug Sheil and others.
An issue that follows on from this is raised by Imam Basuki from Indonesia, as well as reminding us that participation, both as an approach and a means of developing assessment procedures is time consuming a luxury that researchers rarely have, assessments must clearly engage communities in a way that incorporates relevant expectations. These are of course divergent, if we accept that scientists are working from a global viewpoint and local communities from a localised one.
On the question of scale Winfred Thomas suggested that scientists need to recognise and accept the scale of engagement with local communities is at the local, but that this need not be a hindrance or difficulty in formulating conservation policy, but might actually provide us with synergistic systems of achieving such objectives.
Eric Boa was clear that without working from a common knowledge base, that is a mutual agreement over which species and taxa different parties are talking of, the potential for synergy is bound to be limited. Jenny and Doug also pick this up in their further exchanges concerning the detailed formulation of techniques we might use to reconcile values and species between local communities and scientists, as does Virindar Sharma in his description of jointly decided biodiversity indicators in India.
Many of the postings mentioned community training, conservation education, open and adaptable styles of communication and facilitation, and empowerment and joint priority setting as key processes in reaching synergy.
This leads us neatly into Theme 6.