Different monitoring approaches collect data that can measure progress toward achieving global environmental indicators. These indicators can: (1) Audit management actions; (2) Inform policy choices; and (3) Raise awareness among the public and policy makers. We present a generic, empirically
Indigenous people manage or have tenure rights on over a quarter of the world's land surface. While there is growing interest in “evidence‐based” natural resource management, there are few documented experiences with “evidence‐based” practice in community‐managed lands. We explore the evidence required for decisions about harvesting of a community‐managed muskox herd in Greenland, and the collaboration needed to acquire this evidence. We present the development, application, and outcome of a user‐friendly demographic model—a harvest calculator—and we show how Local Ecological Knowledge was used throughout the process and combined with scientific knowledge. The community members identified suitable harvest scenarios with the use of the calculator. The calculator's predictions corresponded with their own perceptions of declining numbers of muskox bulls and suggested that reversal was possible under an alternative harvest scenario. As a result, the community members used the findings to request a revised muskox harvest quota, which gained immediate approval by the government. We draw on our experience to propose where community‐led harvest calculators can be useful. Community‐led harvest calculators can help indigenous and local communities develop economically within environmentally sustainable limits, while at the same time providing community members a “voice” in natural resource governance. An effective local management regime will require the sustained application of this tool.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.