Developing%20Environmental%20Indicators%20in%20the%20Kalahari

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Developing Environmental Indicators in the
Kalahari
Mark Reed
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• Learning Outcome
• Understand how to develop and test environ-mental
  indicators with communities, and use them to
  monitor degradation/sustainability

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• Environmental Indicators
• What are they?
• Signs and symptoms
• A physical, chemical, biological or
  socio-economic measurement, statistic or value
  that can be used to assess natural resources and
  environmental quality

• Rapid, cheap and easy to use
• Can point to potential solutions
• Put a jacket on/ land management
• Guess the story behind these 3 photos

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Yr 1
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Yr 10
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Yr 20
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1
10
20 yrs
What information did you use to tell this story?
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• How do you identify and evaluate indicators of
  degradation/sustainability that can effectively
  detect change and point to solutions?
• Participatory indicator development

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Semi-structured Interview Focus
Groups Multi-Criteria Evaluation
Focus Groups Oral Histories
Above plus Participatory Mapping Ecological
sampling
Decision Support System
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• Benefits of Participatory Indicator Devpt
• Easily used by land managers themselves

• Vast quantity of indicators including
  socio-economic livestock indicators, less on
  soil

• Generation of indicators not found in the
  literature

• Rejection or adaptation of indicators not
  relevant to local conditions or that require
  specialist training and equipment

• No need for trade-off between meaningful
  participation and scientific rigour empirical
  basis for most indicators

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• Significant overlap between indicators elicited
  from communities and literature

• Majority of indicators tested were validated

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• Facilitating more sustainable land management
  through SIs
• Integrate indicators with management options

• Decision support system ID problems potential
  solutions

• Different options for different land users

• Kalahari photographic manuals in local languages
• Distribute, evaluate and optimise in January

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• Dissemination
• Farmers can monitor and record rangeland
  degradation indicators qualitatively using wheel
  charts

• And respond appropriately

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• Summary
• You should now
• Understand how to develop and test environ-mental
  indicators with communities, and use them to
  monitor degradation/sustainability

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Reading Reed MS (2003) Call of the Kalahari
Finding a future for a fragile landscape,
Explorers Journal, Fall 2003 30-33 http//www.en
v.leeds.ac.uk/mreed/explorers.html