Ecological Monitoring

Securing the livelihoods of forest-dependent peoples and the biodiversity they depend on necessitates good governance and sustainable management of common-pool forest resources. This is of special importance in the Nilgiri Biosphere Reserve (NBR), South India, which supports high levels of both biological and cultural diversity. Keystone’s action-research over the past 15 years has illustrated the strong links between conservation and adivasi livelihoods in the NBR. Our aim and specifically that of the project was to improve governance of common-pool NTFP by adivasi communities in the NBR using a cross-sectorial and cross-disciplinary approach. Specifically, we

1) developed protocols and built capacity for local-level participatory monitoring through workshops with local stake holders including harvesters, processors, village forest councils and forest department personnel;

2) established and tested on-the-ground trials for community-based monitoring and adaptive management in five zones;

3) carried out a field course to train students from universities, NGOs and the forest departments in cross-disciplinary research on NTFP;

4) enhanced knowledge of governance, management, ecology and conservation of key subsistence and commercial NTFP in the NBR through action-research; and

5) used our results to contribute to the global understanding of the factors that can drive sustainable management of common-pool resources and provide an approach and model for community-based monitoring and adaptive management of NTFP.