TY - JOUR
T1 - The role of digital data entry in participatory environmental monitoring
AU - Brammer, Jeremy R.
AU - Brunet, Nicolas D.
AU - Burton, A. Cole
AU - Cuerrier, Alain
AU - Danielsen, Finn
AU - Dewan, Kanwaljeet
AU - Herrmann, Thora Martina
AU - Jackson, Micha V.
AU - Kennett, Rod
AU - Larocque, Guillaume
AU - Mulrennan, Monica
AU - Pratihast, Arun Kumar
AU - Saint-Arnaud, Marie
AU - Scott, Colin
AU - Humphries, Murray M.
N1 - Funding Information:
We are grateful to community partners and friends in Kangiqsujuaq, Kitcisakik, Old Crow, and Wemindji, Canada; Tra Bui Commune, Vietnam; Mole National Park, Ghana; Kafa Biosphere Reserve, Ethiopia; and the Wunambal Gaambera and Mapoon communities and other Indigenous communities and rangers in northern Australia who participated in the I-Tracker program. This study was initiated through a Quebec Centre for Biodiversity Sciences Seed Grant. J.R.B. thanks the Garfield Weston Foundation, the Wildlife Conservation Society, the Association of Canadian Universities for Northern Studies, the Donald Mackenzie Munroe Fellowship, the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, and the Fonds de recherche du Qu?bec ? Nature et technologies for their support. The Tra Bui Commune study in Vietnam was conducted under the LUCCi project (http://www.lucci-vietnam.info/). The Kafa Biosphere Reserve study was carried out by the Nature and Biodiversity Conservation Union and funded by the German Government. Mole National Park monitoring was supported by the Wildlife Division of the Forestry Commission of Ghana. The I-Tracker program is run by the North Australian Indigenous Land and Sea Management Alliance Ltd. (NAILSMA), an Indigenous led, not-for-profit, company operating across north Australia. I-Tracker activities discussed in this manuscript received funding support from the Australian Government and the Nature Conservancy.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2016 Society for Conservation Biology
PY - 2016/12
Y1 - 2016/12
N2 - Many argue that monitoring conducted exclusively by scientists is insufficient to address ongoing environmental challenges. One solution entails the use of mobile digital devices in participatory monitoring (PM) programs. But how digital data entry affects programs with varying levels of stakeholder participation, from nonscientists collecting field data to nonscientists administering every step of a monitoring program, remains unclear. We reviewed the successes, in terms of management interventions and sustainability, of 107 monitoring programs described in the literature (hereafter programs) and compared these with case studies from our PM experiences in Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greenland, and Vietnam (hereafter cases). Our literature review showed that participatory programs were less likely to use digital devices, and 2 of our 3 more participatory cases were also slow to adopt digital data entry. Programs that were participatory and used digital devices were more likely to report management actions, which was consistent with cases in Ethiopia, Greenland, and Australia. Programs engaging volunteers were more frequently reported as ongoing, but those involving digital data entry were less often sustained when data collectors were volunteers. For the Vietnamese and Canadian cases, sustainability was undermined by a mismatch in stakeholder objectives. In the Ghanaian case, complex field protocols diminished monitoring sustainability. Innovative technologies attract interest, but the foundation of effective participatory adaptive monitoring depends more on collaboratively defined questions, objectives, conceptual models, and monitoring approaches. When this foundation is built through effective partnerships, digital data entry can enable the collection of more data of higher quality. Without this foundation, or when implemented ineffectively or unnecessarily, digital data entry can be an additional expense that distracts from core monitoring objectives and undermines project sustainability. The appropriate role of digital data entry in PM likely depends more on the context in which it is used and less on the technology itself.
AB - Many argue that monitoring conducted exclusively by scientists is insufficient to address ongoing environmental challenges. One solution entails the use of mobile digital devices in participatory monitoring (PM) programs. But how digital data entry affects programs with varying levels of stakeholder participation, from nonscientists collecting field data to nonscientists administering every step of a monitoring program, remains unclear. We reviewed the successes, in terms of management interventions and sustainability, of 107 monitoring programs described in the literature (hereafter programs) and compared these with case studies from our PM experiences in Australia, Canada, Ethiopia, Ghana, Greenland, and Vietnam (hereafter cases). Our literature review showed that participatory programs were less likely to use digital devices, and 2 of our 3 more participatory cases were also slow to adopt digital data entry. Programs that were participatory and used digital devices were more likely to report management actions, which was consistent with cases in Ethiopia, Greenland, and Australia. Programs engaging volunteers were more frequently reported as ongoing, but those involving digital data entry were less often sustained when data collectors were volunteers. For the Vietnamese and Canadian cases, sustainability was undermined by a mismatch in stakeholder objectives. In the Ghanaian case, complex field protocols diminished monitoring sustainability. Innovative technologies attract interest, but the foundation of effective participatory adaptive monitoring depends more on collaboratively defined questions, objectives, conceptual models, and monitoring approaches. When this foundation is built through effective partnerships, digital data entry can enable the collection of more data of higher quality. Without this foundation, or when implemented ineffectively or unnecessarily, digital data entry can be an additional expense that distracts from core monitoring objectives and undermines project sustainability. The appropriate role of digital data entry in PM likely depends more on the context in which it is used and less on the technology itself.
KW - ciencia ciudadana
KW - citizen science
KW - community-based monitoring
KW - conocimiento ecológico tradicional
KW - monitoreo basado en comunidades
KW - monitoreo y manejo participativo
KW - participación de público en la investigación científica
KW - participatory monitoring and management
KW - public participation in scientific research
KW - traditional ecological knowledge
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84987704790&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1111/cobi.12727
DO - 10.1111/cobi.12727
M3 - Article
C2 - 27032080
AN - SCOPUS:84987704790
SN - 0888-8892
VL - 30
SP - 1277
EP - 1287
JO - Conservation Biology
JF - Conservation Biology
IS - 6
ER -