Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
Box 7.3
Village competitions as a tool for participatory monitoring.
Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust has been pioneering methods for engaging
local people in conservation through participatory monitoring, making use of
people's natural enjoyment of competitions. In the Alaotra wetlands in
Madagascar, villages compete through monitoring key indicators of ecosystem
health, such as observations of endemic species (particularly the critically endan-
gered Alaotran gentle lemur,
Hapalemur alaotrensis
; Figure 7.3) and percentage of
marsh burnt (a key component of habitat destruction). Villagers were particularly
keen to include indicators of economic importance such as fish catches in their
monitoring portfolios. The participatory monitoring has been going since 2001.
Preliminary evidence suggests that trends in marsh burning are recorded well
using this method, but that it is more difficult to get reliable trends in lemur
population abundance. The method provides additional benefits in terms of
community engagement with conservation. A similar scheme has been going
since 2004 in the western dry forests of Madagascar, the only habitat of four
threatened vertebrate species including the Malagasy Giant Jumping rat, the flat-
tailed tortoise and the narrow-striped mongoose. Again, villages monitor key
conservation attributes of their local area and compete for prizes based on indica-
tors of conservation success such as numbers of occupied rat burrows.
Fig. 7.3
Alaotran gentle lemur at Lac Alaotra. Photo © Jonah Ratsimbazafy
DWCT.
