IUCN / SSC Cat Specialist Group - Digital Cat Library |
|
||||||||||
|
||||||||||
|
|
| Johnson, A.; Vongkhamheng, C.; Saypanya, S.; Hansel, T.; Strindberg, S. | |
| Using systematic monitoring to evaluate and adapt management of a tiger reserve in northern Lao PDR | |
| 2012 Full Book | |
Although considerable effort and resources have been dedicated to biodiversity conservation over the last three decades, the effectiveness of these conservation actions is still frequently unclear. Thus, practitioners are being called on to be ever more strategic in their use of often limited resources available for the scale of the work required. To address this problem, several frameworks have been developed to guide the practice of conservation and facilitate adaptive management. Although these frameworks now exist and monitoring is key to adaptive management, there are still relatively few detailed examples of projects that have successfully implemented monitoring plans and then analyzed the data to generate results that were in turn used to adapt management. Reasons cited for this include insufficient funding for monitoring and evaluation, inappropriate monitoring designs that are unable to generate results to answer management questions, ineffectively managed monitoring information, and institutional arrangements that do not facilitate the feedback of monitoring results (should they exist) to management. Given these challenges, there is a need for case studies that illustrate how monitoring and evaluation can be done in the context of the _Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation_ to support learning and provide evidence for the effectiveness of a conservation action. This paper provides a detailed case study of adaptive management in practice. In this case the Wildlife Conservation Society's Landscape Species Approach was used over a seven-year period to plan, execute, evaluate and adapt a project to recover wild tigers _Panthera tigris_ and their ungulate prey (Gaur _Bos gaurus_, Southwest China serow _Capricornis milneedwardsii_, Sambar deer _Cervus unicolor_, wild pig _Sus_ spp., and muntjacs _Muntiacus_ spp.) in Lao PDR. After several iterations of the project management cycle, we assess to what degree the framework supported rigorous monitoring and evaluation that was used to inform and adapt management and what conditions were present and/or needed to overcome the constraints that commonly impede the practice of adaptive management in conservation. |
|
 |
PDF files are only accessible to Friends of the Cat Group. Joining Friends of the Cat Group gives you unlimited access and downloads in the Cat SG Library for one year, and allows you to receive our newsletter Cat News (2 regular issues per year plus special issues). More information how to join here |
(c) IUCN/SSC Cat Specialist Group ( IUCN - The World Conservation Union) |