This first report of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment describes the conceptual framework that is being used in the MA. It is not a formal assessment of the literature, but rather a scientifically informed presentation of the choices made by the assessment team in structuring the analysis and framing the issues. The conceptual framework elaborated in this report describes the approach and assumptions that will underlie the analysis conducted in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. The framework was developed through interactions among the experts involved in the MA as well as stakeholders who will use its findings. It represents one means of examining the linkages between ecosystems and human well-being that is both scientifically credible and relevant to decision-makers. This framework for analysis and decision-making should be of use to a wide array of individuals and institutions in government, the private sector, and civil society that seek to incorporate considerations of ecosystem services in their assessments, plans, and actions.

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Ecosystems and human well-being: a framework for assessment

The 245-page report lays out the approaches, assumptions, processes, and parameters scientists are using in the study. It offers decision-makers a mechanism to identify options that can better achieve core human development and sustainability goals and better understand the trade-offs in decisions about development and the environment.

Millennium Ecosystem Assessment: Ecosystems and human well-being: a framework for assessment

Monitoring of biodiversity and resource use by professional scientists is often costly and hard to sustain, especially in developing countries, where financial resources are limited. Moreover, such monitoring can be logistically and technically difficult and is often perceived to be irrelevant by resource managers and the local communities. Alternatives are emerging, carried out at a local scale and by individuals with little formal education. The methods adopted span a spectrum, from participatory monitoring where aims and objectives are defined by the community, to ranger-based monitoring in protected areas. What distinguishes these approaches is that local people or local government staff are directly involved in data collection and (in most instances) analysis. In this issue of Biodiversity and Conservation, 15 case studies examine whether these new approaches can address the limitations of professional monitoring in developing countries. The case studies evaluate ongoing locally-based monitoring schemes involving more than 1500 community members in 13 countries. The papers are based on a symposium held in Denmark in April 2004 (www. monitoringmatters.org). Here, we review how the case studies shed light on the following key issues concerning locally-based methods: cost, sustainability, their ability to detect true local or larger-scale trends, their links to management decisions and action, and the empowerment of local constituencies. Locally-based monitoring appears to be consistently cheap relative to the costs of management and of professional monitoring, even though the start-up costs can be high. Most local monitoring schemes are still young and thus their chances of being sustained over the longer term are not yet certain. However, we believe their chances of surviving are better than many professional schemes, particularly when they are institutionalised within existing management structures, and linked to the delivery of ecosystem goods or services to local communities. When properly designed, local schemes yield locally relevant results that can be as reliable as those derived from professional monitoring. Many management decisions emanate from local schemes. The decisions appear to be taken promptly, in response to immediate threats to the environment, and often lead to community-based actions to protect habitats, species or the local flow of ecosystem benefits; however, few local schemes have so far led to actions beyond the local scale. Locally-based monitoring schemes often reinforce existing community-based resource management systems and lead to change in the attitude of locals towards more environmentally sustainable resource management. Locally-derived data have considerable unexplored potential to elucidate global patterns of change in the status of populations and habitats, the services they provide, and the threats they face, but more effort is needed to develop effective modalities for feeding locally-derived data up to national and international levels.

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Monitoring Matters: Examining the Potential of Locally-based Approaches

Anthropogenic disturbance and tree diversity in Montane Rain Forests in Chiapas, Mexico

Tropical biologists need help. Examples show that local people can be trained to be effective parataxonomists, greatly assisting efforts to document and assess tropical biodiversity. Local collaborations also offer promising ways with which to improve natural resource management and conservation. However, for several reasons, most biologists remain slow to approve and implement these approaches. The challenges and potentials need evaluation and neglect means that opportunities are being missed. Here, we consider experiences of local collaborations and discuss obstacles to their wider implementation. We urge tropical biologists to recognize and embrace the opportunities provided by working with local people.

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Tropical biologists, local people and conservation: new opportunities for collaboration

In order to evaluate the usefulness of rapid surveys of indigenous knowledge for assessing trends in biodiversity, a case study was undertaken in two rural communities, Juznajab and Muquenal, in Chiapas, Mexico. This involved the use of a variety of rapid rural appraisal (RRA) and participatory rural appraisal (PRA) techniques, including semi-structured interviews, transect walks and participatory mapping. These approaches were used in conjunction with analysis of land use maps and aerial photographs to evaluate recent changes in vegetation cover and abundance of utilised species. In both communities, the extent of forest cover was considered by local people to have declined substantially in recent decades, with an annual decline in forest cover of 0.3% and 0.6% estimated by local people in Juznajab and Muquenal, respectively. Results from RRA indicated that this has been accompanied by significant declines in the abundance of useful species. In Juznajab 60% and 79%, and in Muquenal 96% and 85% of plants and animal species, respectively, were considered to have declined within living memory. These declines appear to result from over-utilization as well as habitat changes. For example, most of the tree species used for timber and the animal species used for meat were considered to have declined substantially in both communities. These results indicate that indigenous knowledge is potentially a valuable source of information about biodiversity trends, which could be assessed during Rapid Biodiversity Assessments and incorporated into the process of resource management by local communities. However, the contradictions recorded between assessments of vegetation change by local people and data obtained from other sources indicates the need for caution in the use of indigenous knowledge for this purpose.

Susana Ochoa Gaona

Papers

Use of indigenous knowledge for rapidly assessing trends in biodiversity: a case study from Chiapas, Mexico