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Preface |
Broadening
Participation in Biological Monitoring: |
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The importance of inventories (one time enumerations) and monitoring (repeated inventories or observations to detect change over time) for conserving and managing the biodiversity of temperate and boreal forests was recognized in an international cooperative effort called the Montréal Process (MPWG 1999). International working groups, through a series of meetings, have developed criteria and indicators of sustainable forest management. Criterion 1 (the first of six) is the Conservation of Biological Diversity. By their definitions, a criterion is a category of conditions or processes by which sustainable forest management could be assessed. Such criteria are characterized by a set of related indicators that are monitored periodically to assess change. Indicators are quantitative or qualitative variables that can be measured or described and that when observed periodically demonstrate trends. Monitoring is the periodic and systematic measurement and assessment of change of an indicator. Hence this international team of experts selected the monitoring of biodiversity as their first means of ascertaining sustainable forest management. Forestry organizations around the world are now adapting the Montréal Process criteria and indictors to improve and evaluate their forestry practices. Balmford and others (2005) provide a review of global progress and needed work with indicators. In 2002, the National Commission on Science for Sustainable Forestry (NCSSF) was organized under the auspices of the National Council for Science and the Environment (NCSE) and was sponsored by the Doris Duke Charitable Foundation, Surdna Foundation, The David and Lucile Packard Foundation, and the National Forest Foundation. NCSSF’s mission is to… “improve the scientific basis for the development, implementation, and evaluation of sustainable forestry in the United States”. NCSSF focused on the Montreal Process Criterion 1: Conservation of Biological Diversity. The commission emphasizes developing knowledge and tools directly relevant to improving sustainable forestry practices on-the-ground over the next five years. The scope of their mandate includes the needs of managed forestlands, industrial and non-industrial, in the continental United States. This mandate is being carried out through a series of annual competitive grants that are progressively focused on “syntheses of knowledge, surveys of decision-makers’ needs, assessment of applications, and development of practical tools” (National Commission on the Science for Sustainable Forestry 2005). In June 2002, the Institute for Culture and Ecology (IFCAE) received a grant from the commission to study the relationship between nontimber forest products and biodiversity in the United States. A key finding was that national forest managers and state forestry departments currently lack the capacity to develop and implement nontimber forest product (NTFP) inventory and monitoring programs, but that precedents exist in other natural resource management arenas, as well as in NTFP management, for involving harvesters in participatory inventory and monitoring (Jones and others 2004). Through a series of meetings with NTFP stakeholders, IFCAE enumerated recommendations for the establishment of participatory NTFP inventory and monitoring processes (Lynch 2004, Lynch and others 2004). Challenges to monitoring the vast array of NTFPs that are harvested from forests in the United States mirror the challenges of monitoring the even greater number of species (biodiversity) in any given forest ecosystem. In both cases, however, managers have a resource they can tap to help them in their task, namely other interested parties, or “stakeholders”. As a follow-up to the recommendations regarding participatory monitoring, NCSSF sponsored this project to develop tools for managers to use in their quest to sustain forest biodiversity through effective monitoring. Definitions of biodiversity vary, but it can be defined as the variation among all living organisms, including diversity within species (genetic), between species, among habitats and ecosystems, and within the biosphere (Noss and Cooperrider 1994, Lovejoy 1997). This biological heritage, of which we are an integral part, provides all our food resources, much of our energy, many materials, breathable air, climate control, regulation of hydrologic cycles, protection from solar radiation, and the many wonders of sharing our home world with related beings. The numerous ways in which human activity has reduced biodiversity, especially in the last century, have lead to a wide range of international efforts to develop sustainable societies that do not further degrade the diversity or function of life on earth. Inventory and monitoring programs face a particularly difficult challenge when their focus turns to biodiversity (biological diversity). The magnitude of the challenge lies in the sheer numbers of organisms in any given ecosystem and their diverse natural histories. A variety of approaches have been used to address these difficulties, but monitoring biodiversity can stress the budget and resources of any land management agency, organization, or company. At the same time, stakeholders interested in the sustainable management of forests often have an interest in and sometimes already engage informally in biological monitoring, and have knowledge and skills that can help future projects meet monitoring goals. Although we discuss aspects of participatory approaches that relate specifically to biodiversity monitoring, almost all the topics we cover apply equally well to a broader topic of biological monitoring. We therefore chose to target a wider audience of managers and scientists by focusing on biological monitoring in general and addressing biodiversity monitoring as an important subset of monitoring issues. ©2005 Institute for Culture and Ecology
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