Assessing and measuring changes in social and ecological systems with local communities in tropical landscapes: examples from Indonesia

Changes in social and ecological systems can be economic, political or environmental. Assessing and monitoring these changes can lead to better-informed decisions regarding land management and strategies to adapt to those changes. Yet measuring multiple changes can be challenging because of the costs, requirements for multidisciplinary skills and local knowledge, and repetitiveness of the measurements. Participatory monitoring with local people is potentially powerful for reducing costs, by engaging local people who are highly knowledgeable, have close links with the environment being monitored, and live nearby. They can provide grounded information on changes and drivers of changes in their forest. Their presence in or near forested landscape makes them the ideal people to describe what is happening, for what reasons, and to identify threats. Second, their capacity to measure and report changes in forest cover to national levels can be built through training. They can use the results of their measurements to negotiate and take part in decisions related to changes in carbon stock at the local level. To address these challenges, our research looks at the conditions under which local participation in measuring changes can be feasible. Our study asks: What do local people know about the changes in their forested landscapes and other natural resources? In the context of those changes, what control do local communities have on their territory? What are their interest, skills, and availability for participating in monitoring? We focus on one specific topic, forest MRV (Measuring, Reporting, Verifying), and compare the conditions of participation of local people in measurement and reporting of changes in forest cover and quality. Our objective is to find ways to adapt the MRV methods to each local situation, to make it effective, efficient, and sustainable. In this conference we will share preliminary results from case studies in three provinces in Indonesia (Papua, West Kalimantan, and Central Java). (Texte integral