| 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
| Izabella Koziell |
Day 7 marked the start of Theme 3, which is focusing on processes, methods and tools for participatory surveying or monitoring of biodiversity, or for understanding people's values.
We had some useful scene-setting discussion on this theme, described below. However, over the next couple of days, we are VERY keen to hear about your experiences regarding specific tools and methods that you have used, and what you think worked and did not work, and why? And, how does the success or failure of methods adopted vary according to context, or the enabling environment? This will help set the scene for identifying what further work needs to be done to improve and build on existing methods.
Please refer to the website under 'Theme 3' for further information, references and case studies. Your feedback on these is much welcome!
The Introductory note by Jeannette van Rijsoort yielded a series of very useful points based on her experience from the Forestry Conservation and Community Development Project in Yunnan, China. She stressed the fact that the PM&E methodologies adopted must be governed by the purpose of the biodiversity assessment. This was supported by points made Teeka Bhattarai - who felt that there has been a tendency to focus more on methodological development than on the identification and clarification of the objective of the assessment - and this must be reversed. Also by R.G. Lowe who believes that it is the purpose or aim of the assessment that has the most important effect.
Jeanette raised the point that assessment methodologies that aim to collect quantitative figures on e.g. species numbers changes, will differ significantly from those that are aiming to generate mutual capacity building or facilitate more transparent decision-making processes on biodiversity conservation. She also stressed the importance of involving villagers in identifying the purpose and in developing the appropriate methodologies; and, for starting with simple methods and tools, as this would provide a better guarantee of stakeholder involvement, whilst still allowing for increasing sophistication at later stages, if considered appropriate. She mentions that the project decided to opt for complementary systems of biodiversity assessment: western science-based and participatory, rather than just focusing on the one system, even though maintaining a communication flow between these two systems has proved challenging.
Jeannette also emphasized some of the constraints in methodological development notably: the lack of an enabling policy, legal and institutional framework; local peoples' concern that such assessments may, by yielding information on local uses, be used to impose restrictions on resource use; and the fact that local people are unlikely to want to monitor biodiversity in which they have no direct interest. Another important consideration was regarding whether local people should be paid for their engagement. Many poor farmers simply cannot afford to give their time towards such activities. The Yunnan Project made a conscious decision to provide 'stimulation fees', as well as paying for any operational costs for data analysis and dissemination. They will tackle integration of such activities in the normal livelihood and development at a later stage.
Iain Davidson-Hunt, based on his experience in Canada, talked about the need to move beyond seeing local communities as sources of information to partners in the production of knowledge about biodiversity, which requires methods that move away from one way flows of information towards methods which encourage mutual learning. Given that such methodologies often involve cross-cultural communication, emphasis needs to be placed on how different cultures will communicate so that there is mutual understanding of each others perspectives. Classification can sometimes act as a useful communication tool, e.g. when talking about plant diversity, but this is only an entry point. He also believes that local peoples are keen to be exposed to western scientific approaches so that they can then take what is useful and integrated it into their own systems. It not therefore a matter of either/or. Teeka Bhattarai raises a cautionary point: biologists, as they are becoming more aware of alternative world visions with respect to biodiversity and the biological world, are reinventing the wheel with regard to methods and approaches and not learning enough from the vast body of existing work carried out by social scientists, e.g anthropologists, ethnoecologists etc.
He also highlights the challenge faced by researchers, or local community members who must present local knowledge in a manner that makes sense to provincial, conservation and federal organisations. He believes that whilst the methodologies for collecting information might be complex, the products can be quite simple. He looks towards maps, which denote locations of interest of a single species, or aboriginal cultural landscapes, as useful tools.
Above all, he states that both local people and biodiversity will benefit from the potential synergy of knowledge generated by committed scientists and local people. However, place-specific and equitable research partnerships and supportive decision-making institution are an essential prerequisite to enable this to happen.
Iain mentioned several sources of useful information: Fikret Berkes 1999 book on Sacred Ecology and Traditional Ecological Knowledge and Tim Ingold's 2000 book on Environmental Perception. He also provided website addressess for useful documents through the NC knowledge store: http://www.ncrs.fs.fed.us/pubs where the chapters by Davidson-Hunt, Duchesne and Zasada, Chapeskie and Davidson-Hunt and Berkes might be of interest. For examples of public policy, and responsibilities at different scales see the Northern Boreal Initiative on http://www.mnr.gov.on.ca/MNR/nbi.