Near–real-time monitoring and response are possible

No abstract

Given the linkages between natural resources and social conflicts, evidence increasingly shows that successful natural resource management requires conflict mitigation and prevention. However, there may be a gap in practice between knowing what processes and tools need to be used to manage conservation conflicts and how to actually implement them. We present learning from a practice-based case study of conflict management in the Amarakaeri Communal Reserve in the Peruvian Amazon that aimed to develop natural resource governance institutions and build stakeholder capacity, including of indigenous groups, to navigate existing conflict resolution mechanisms. Through applying good practices in conservation conflict management and collaborative governance, we generated important lessons on the practical considerations involved in collaborative conservation. These lessons, while specific to our case, could be applied to a variety of protected areas facing complex socialecological systems dynamics and wicked problems. ARTICLE HISTORY

No abstract

Local ecological knowledge (LEK) offers a broad range of information that conservationists, development practitioners, non-governmental organizations, and researchers value greatly. However, LEK has an intrinsic value to its holders; it represents their capacity to adapt and survive in remote areas, while anchoring their cultural continuity within a specific ecological region. The authors set out to describe in this essay the ethnobotanical knowledge of sarrapia (Dipteryx odorata [Aubl.] Willd.) or tonka bean among the inhabitants of three non-indigenous communities of the Lower Caura River Basin, southern Venezuela. The results of this study suggest that there is a strong association between the livelihood of the Caura's residents and the consecutive annual cycle of this species. This association is demonstrated by how the locals: 1. make interconnections between the biological cycle of sarrapia and climatic and ecological variables; 2. discriminate between wild and cultivated sarrapia tree stands; 3. provide accurate estimates on the total production of sarrapia beans per tree stand every year; 4. implement the appropriate skills throughout the delicate process of extracting and treating the beans; and 5. regulate the access and usufruct rights to the wild and cultivated sarrapia trees.