ECOLOGICAL MONITORING - A VITAL NEED FOR INTEGRATED CONSERVATION AND DEVELOPMENT PROGRAMS IN THE TROPICS

The integration of conservation with rural economic development is the latest proposed means of preventing loss of the earth's biodiversity and of solving the dilemma of ''people versus parks.'' International d evelopment agencies now recognize the need to preserve natural resourc es and biodiversity in concert with improving human well-being; likewi se, conservation agencies acknowledge that parks cannot be protected o ver the long term without the consent and support of local inhabitants . Nonetheless, of 36 integrated conservation and development projects (ICDPs) reviewed by us and others, only 5 demonstrate that they have p ositively contributed to the conservation of wildlife. In this paper w e promote ecological monitoring to (1) evaluate the ICDP paradigm and specific ICDPs, (2) provide feedback to guide the future course of ICD Ps, and (3) integrate information relevant to both conservation and de velopment. Few ICDPs have included ecological monitoring programs to d ate, although several have plans to monitor in the future. We outline a flexible blueprint for ecological monitoring of ICDPs and provide an example from our ongoing work in Madagascar. To establish comprehensi ve ecological monitoring programs, we recommend that two types of moni toring be carried out at multiple levels of ecological organization an d across diverse taxa. First, monitoring programs should assess the to tal effects of ICDPs on biodiversity and on overall ecosystem health b y tracking indicator assemblages across space and through time (biodiv ersity monitoring). Second, ICDPs should monitor the resources and eco logical processes that will be directly affected by changes in human a ctivities due to implementation of ICDPs by comparing target species d iversity and abundance in unregulated areas, managed buffer zones, and core protected areas through time (impact monitoring). Comprehensive ecological monitoring is critical in shaping ICDP management plans and in furthering the integration of conservation and development.