Reduced Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries (REDD+) is a policy mechanism now agreed under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). It aims to reduce carbon dioxide emissions from developing countries through the sustainable management of forests, while providing co-benefits of biodiversity conservation and livelihood support. Implementation challenges include linking remote sensing and national forest inventories of carbon stocks, to local implementation and measuring carbon loss from forest degradation. Community-based forest monitoring can help overcome some of these challenges. We show that local people can collect forest condition data of comparable quality to trained scientists, at half the cost. We draw on our experience to propose how and where local REDD+ monitoring can be established. Empowering communities to own and monitor carbon stocks could provide a rapid and cost-effective way of absorbing carbon dioxide emissions, while potentially contributing to local livelihoods and forest biodiversity conservation.

By 1974. the Mauritius Kestrel Falco punctatus had declined to only four known wild birds, including one breeding pair, as a result of habitat loss and pesticide contamination. A conservation project begun in 1973 has used many management techniques including captive breeding, supplemental feeding of wild birds, provision of nestboxes, multiple clutching, egg pulling, artificial incubation, hand rearing and release of captive-bred and captive-reared birds by hacking, fostering and predator control. A total of 331 kestrels were released in the 10 years up to the end of the 1993-1994 breeding season: one-third of these were captive bred, the rest were derived from eggs harvested from the wild. About 257 (78Yo) released birds survived to independence and 61% of independent juveniles survived their first winter. Although at least 71% of ringed birds attempted to breed in their first year, only 38% of the nests of first-year females successfully fledged young, averaging 1.7 per successful nest. Older females fledged young from 64% of nests, fledging an average of 2.0 per successful nest. The breeding success of hacked birds was similar to that of parent-raised kestrels, though the clutches of hacked birds tended to be larger. Annual replacement of birds holding territories averaged 17% for both sexes. By the 1993-1994 season, an estimated 56-68 pairs had established territories in the wild with a postbreeding population, including floating birds and independent young, of 222-286. Most of the kestrels were in three sub-populations, two of which were derived entirely from released birds. Mauritius Kestrels are relatively sedentary: 89% of ringed birds found nesting were less than 5 km from their release or fledging site. Since the pesticides responsible for their decline are no longer used, the number of Mauritius Kestrels should continue to rise through natural recruitment. The distribution of suitable habitat suggests that an eventual population of 500-600 kestrels on Mauritius is possible. Due to its outstanding success, the release programme for the Mauritius Kestrel ended after the 1993-1994 breeding season, though the population will continue to be monitored carefully for at least the next 5 years.

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Abstract. Participatory ecological monitoring is a realistic and effective approach in wetlands such as Alaotra, Madagascar, where important biodiversity is found in an area with high human population density. Since 2001, Durrell Wildlife Conservation Trust, government technical services, regional non-governmental organisations and local communities have collected data on key species, such as waterbirds, a locally endemic lemur and useful natural resources. The monitoring was linked with environmental quizzes and an inter-village competition, which helped raise interest in the monitoring and publicise results. The monitoring has assisted wetland management by guiding amendments to and increasing respect for the regional fishing convention, raising awareness, catalysing marsh management transfer to communities and stimulating collaboration and good governance. The sustainability of the monitoring scheme and the usefulness of the data for detecting trends and guiding local managements are discussed.

The rapid global growth of conservation schemes designed to incentivize local communities to conserve natural resources has placed new importance on biological monitoring to assess whether agreements and targets linked to payments are being met. To evaluate competence in natural resource monitoring, we compared data on status and trends collected independently by local-community members and trained scientists for 63 taxa and five types of resource use in 34 tropical forest sites across four countries over 2.5 years. We hypothesized that the results would vary according to differences in the education and value systems of the monitors. We found that, despite considerable differences in countries, cultures, and the types of natural resources monitored, the community members and the scientists produced similar results for the status of and trends in species and natural resources. Our findings highlight the potential value of locally based natural resource monitoring for conservation decisionmaking across developing countries.