Challenges of Participatory Community Monitoring of Biodiversity in Protected Areas in Brazilian Amazon

Daniel C Costa,Guillaume A E L Marchand,Henrique S Pereira,Suzy C P Silva

doi:10.3390/d10030061

Daniel C Costa, Guillaume A E L Marchand + Show 2 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/d10030061

Copy DOI

Journal: Diversity	Publication Date: Jul 11, 2018
Citations: 10	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: Universidade Federal do Amazonas

Abstract

Participatory community monitoring programs (PCM) have become an important methodological innovation for the management of biodiversity conservation in protected areas. Based on the participation of the local communities, they are presented as less costly programs than conventional ones. However, in practical terms, such programs pose serious implementation challenges. In this article, we identify the achievements, obstacles, and perspectives of four PCM implemented in the state of Amazonas, Brazil. Based on bibliographical and documentary research, direct observations and in-person interviews with program managers and specialists, we qualitatively evaluated these programs with respect to participation, data production and retrieval, and financing. We found that the performances of these programs were not yet adequate to their protected areas management priorities and that they had not yet generated perceptible benefits enough to enhance community trust and full appropriation of the programs’ outcomes by resource users and by conservation unit management teams.

Highlights

In general terms, there has been an increasing emphasis on monitoring as a process to evaluate the quality of results from different biodiversity conservation management strategies [1]
Participatory community monitoring (PCM) programs are valuable sources of information to improve the management of protected areas created to promote the in situ conservation of biodiversity
The results presented here constitute part of an ongoing larger study named “Programs of Participatory Monitoring as instruments for adaptive management of state conservation units in the Amazonas”, which has been carried out since 2014 by the Center for Environmental Sciences of Federal University of Amazonas (UFAM)

Summary

Introduction

There has been an increasing emphasis on monitoring as a process to evaluate the quality of results from different biodiversity conservation management strategies [1]. Participatory community monitoring (PCM) programs are valuable sources of information to improve the management of protected areas created to promote the in situ conservation of biodiversity. These programs are part of an increasing effort on the part of many countries that have begun to adopt actions to monitor the “tendencies of their biodiversity” [2] Monitoring is a data collection process on a given subject, over a considered or estimated period of time, during which the effectiveness of changes in behavior of what had been monitored is verified, that is, revealing differences between “before” and “after” [5,6]. It involves two complementary procedures: the collection and systematic analysis of data [7,8]

Objectives

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion