Effectiveness of community-based monitoring projects of terrestrial game fauna in the tropics: a global review

Abstract

Biodiversity monitoring projects comprise key conservation strategies established to minimize biodiversity loss. Particularly, community-based monitoring projects have recently been implemented worldwide. This approach favors three conservation pillars: provision of information on monitored resource through time, local people’s empowerment, and management practices. We conducted a systematic literature review to identify all past and current community-based monitoring projects of terrestrial game fauna in the tropics, and specifically examined seventeen of those projects in terms of costs, interruption and effectiveness. We identified a total of 52 projects, mostly located in the Amazon. We revealed an annual cost of US$0.24/hectare/project, with most of these initiatives interrupted due the lack of funding. We also noticed that the absence of data analyses comprised the main obstacle for the assessment on monitored game fauna through time, while empowerment was hampered by the lack of intensive local participation at different stages of monitoring. Finally, we observed that most management actions resulted in community rules and applications, including local bylaws governing resource use. We highlight that community-based programs can be more effective if they engage local people at all monitoring stages, build solid partnerships to ensure long-term funding and translate the outcomes into management practices for the monitored fauna.