| 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 |
Under the Methods and Tools theme participants were prompted to exchange views and information about techniques that have aided participatory assessment, and to explain under what conditions these were successful.
The introductory papers were written from two different perspectives but both touched on the need for communication between stakeholders and equality in negotiation over what elements are included in an assessment of biodiversity. Both revisited the question of setting objectives, and each author made links to biodiversity assessment for conservation initiatives.
Karen Lawrence in the Philippines responded from her experience and thought that if we wish to build participatory methodologies, these are certainly likely to take more time to implement than less participatory approaches, because they are likely to be meeting objectives that go beyond taxonomic inventories and species lists and will be aimed at building community trust, knowledge, understanding and capacity.
An important point was made by Richard Lowe who describes the work he was involved with in Nigeria, uncovering, documenting and understanding the ecology of the forests there. Despite the scientific investigation carried out in those forests, Richard reminds us that the diversity that we are assessing in forests today, relates to events that have structured the forest in the past. He implies that biodiversity assessments in themselves will be reflecting these historical situations, and perhaps that they should pay more attention to the functional aspects of biodiversity. He also relates his experiences of a forest that has changed in the years that he has been involved with it, and reminds us that change is always with us, and that for the most part the actions of man are driving those processes.
We come full circle to points made by Karen Lawrence, who says that you don't need a biodiversity assessment to recognise what is being degraded, but you do need assessment techniques which can help to uncover the effects of people, which you can then use as a basis for negotiation between stakeholders over tenure and conservation practice. The Forest Action Team in Nepal pick up on some of these issues too, and clearly state their belief that methods should support the ability for stakeholders to participate in negotiation from an equal base, and that valuing biodiversity is a political process, so means of empowerment woven into methods are just as important as producing profiles of biodiversity.
The last word might be given to the participant who suggested that by the time we had constructed our tools and techniques, and formulated our plant or animal lists, the biodiversity we wanted to evaluate might have disappeared. It is perhaps a question of finding approaches to engage, and means to communicate 'our' biodiversity concerns, that might be just as important as research and assessment exercises themselves. As Jenny Wong says in her reply to Iain Davidson-Hunt, communities will themselves record their plant knowledge and request ways to assess and evaluate paths of action for their own local and home grown biodiversity concerns. If we mean to be participatory in our techniques, do we need to insist on global perspectives being incorporated in evaluations, or could we accept that acting locally often leads to thinking global?
Participants are reminded of the new case study material on the website. Those by Davidson-Hunt and Vu Ngoc Long-Truong Quang Tâm present us with some interesting tools and methodological approaches.
As we move now to discussing information needs of stakeholders, all the concerns and ideas we have about objectives, merging values and finding appropriate tools, come together in our consideration of what our assessments can achieve with the information they have generated.