The Concept, Practice, Application, and Results of Locally Based Monitoring of the Environment

Abstract

Locally based monitoring is typically undertaken in areas in which communities have a close attachment to their natural resource base. We present a summary of work to develop a theoretical and practical understanding of locally based monitoring and we outline tests of this approach in research and practice over the past 20 years. Our tests show that locally based monitoring delivers credible data at local scale independent of external experts and can be used to inform local and national decision making within a short timeframe. We believe that monitoring conducted by and anchored in communities will gain in importance where scientist-led monitoring is sparse or too expensive to sustain and for ecosystem attributes in cases in which remote sensing cannot provide credible data. The spread of smartphone technology and online portals will further enhance the importance and usefulness of this discipline.

Roadkills as a Method to Monitor Raccoon Dog Populations

“…With the help of citizen scientists—for example, by those persons using some routes for regular commuting—assessment of roadkills may be extended on the regional road network. Such an approach would be most promising as it includes local inhabitants and their knowledge [ 24 , 46 ]. Various social groups have already been used for monitoring medium-sized [ 47 , 48 , 49 ] and large carnivores.…”

The Arctic Highlights Our Failure to Act in a Rapidly Changing World

“…Although, many questions remain as to how to best steward and manage such reserves. Different assessments have demonstrated that Indigenous, community-based management and support activities, such as community-driven monitoring, are most effective in ensuring adaptive and sustainable resource management in rapidly changing environments [45,53]. In the Arctic, increasing devolution of regulatory powers to the local, typically Indigenousmanaged scale is evident.…”

Metrology applied to Human Ecology: critical analysis of geospatial data for regionalization of Brazilian Anthromes

“…The literature points out that national databases can provide more consistent sources of geographic information for mapping anthromes (Danielsen et al, 2021;Junior, 2021;Li et al, 2016;Picuno et al, 2019). These platforms have a greater number of data for smaller areas, which enables greater detailing of the investigated sectors (Chuai & Feng, 2019;Massetti & Gil, 2020;Parente et al, 2019;Winkler et al, 2021;Zheng et al, 2014).…”

“…In this manner, through the analysis of the sample fractions of the demographic method, it was possible to verify that the population is e ciently described in each of the census sectors (IBGE, 2013b, 2020b), bringing the population data closer to smaller areas when compared to the bases global(Blundo et al, 2021;Erb et al, 2017;Li et al, 2016;Nedkov & Burkhard, 2012). This directly contributes to the spatialization of information about the population(Umunay, 2015;Margulies et al, 2016;Rockström et al, 2009), allowing a closer approximation of the demographic data to the local reality(Danielsen et al, 2021;Junior, 2021;Mbaru et al, 2021;Picuno et al, 2019).…”

“…According to the examination ful lled here, it was identi ed that within the standard of acceptance of results (minimum precision), the method can recognize particulars that identify natural features (Burgess, 2021; Massetti & Gil, 2020; Picuno et al, 2019), which improves the information in smaller areas (Liu et al, 2018; Saah et al, 2020), as recommended for regionalizing anthromes. Then, the area of 1 km² signi cantly reduces the coverage of the land use and cover data (Dandois et al, 2017; Pouliot et al, 2014), enabling its application in the cluster analysis for bringthe mapping of anthromes closer to the local reality(Danielsen et al, 2021;Didoné et al, 2017;Fuentealba et al, 2021;Yang et al, 2019). In addition, through the analysis of this tool (ISO, 2017) it is possible to attest that the results generated even assimilate the natural contours associated with the areas (IBGE, 2013a), allowing the prospection of anthromes as a resource for land use planning(Chetcuti et al, 2021;Erb et al, 2017;Shumba et al, 2021).…”