NATURE WORLDWIDE: MONITORING NATURE

WORLD INSTITUTE FOR CONSERVATION & ENVIRONMENT, WICE

ECOSYSTEMS AND PROTECTED AREAS MONITORING

This web page is offers all the documentation and tools for cost-effective monitoring of protected areas systems and ecosystems, including the comprehensive Ecosystem and Protected Areas Monitoring Database, as well as the Protected Areas Management effectiveness database, a tool for management effectiveness assessments.The files for these tools can be downloaded from the Download Page. Before you download, read this pages carefully. 

The database was originally designed in the period 1999 – 2001 in the context of the Central American Ecosystems Map carried out under the World Bank - Dutch Partnership Agreement. The map was the result of a team effort (Vreugdenhil et al. 2002a[1]) by the biodiversity and environmental conservation institutions of the Central American countries and their coordinating institution, the Comisión Centroamericana de Ambiente y Desarrollo (CCAD, http://www.sicanet.org.sv/) and must be considered the culmination of decades of research by ecologists from across the region, many of whom have been associated with national universities. Given the variety of elevations and the climatic barrier function of the mountain chains over relatively very small areas, Central America is characterized by a great variety of ecological conditions, varying form the cold highlands at both ends of the region to wet tropical lowland rainforests at the Atlantic coast and semi-desert conditions in some locations along the Pacific Coast. For the production of the map, a database was needed to store the field[2] data in an orderly fashion and allow scientists to relate data to locations on the map. 

An ecosystem map presents sharply defined polygons with authoritative labels. However, any classification system is arbitrary in the sense that it introduces artificial separations in only gradually changing landscapes by subdividing modifiers in subdivisions agreed by convention and which can often not be located in the field with precision. Polygons reflect all the biases of its authors, as well as all the imperfections and errors inherent to any map and to any classification system (Muchoney et al. 1998, Touber et al. 1989). To compensate for such imperfections, sound field data need to be collected, representing consistent sampling and stored in a logically organised database. The mapping project for Central America dedicated great effort to deciding which field information to collect. It started out with the "STEP" design of the University of Boston (Muchoney et al. 1998),which was eventually transformed into the current completely new database. It not only serves to support ecosystem maps for any region in the world, but it has been expanded for monitoring ecological and human use parameters of protected areas or natural areas and ecosystems in general. It has been intensely used in the field by more than 25 experienced scientists. For its design, renowned external international scientists were consulted (Professor R.A.A. Oldeman, Ph.D., University of Wageningen; Professor A. M. Cleef, Ph.D., University of Amsterdam and Wageningen; Dr. H. van Gils, ITC, Enschede and M. Kappelle, PhD, University of Utrecht, Prof. Dr. H, H. T. Prins, Wageningen University), Dr. Patrick Drohan.

The Central American Ecosystems Map has been based on the “ Tentative Physiognomic-Ecological Classification of Plant Formations of the Earth” as developed by Mueler-Dombois and Ellenberg (1974[3]) under the auspices of the UNESCO. The selection of this classification system has been based on an analysis by the scientists and has later been corroborated in detail by Vreugdenhil et al. (2002 and 2003), but some additions needed to be made, most notoriously an expansion for water classes and the potential to create floristic extensions, in following of the United States National Classification  System (USNVC). A further revision and updating of the map was done in 2003 in Guatemala during a workshop of a delegation of the scientists. The database can be used in combination with all major vegetation or ecosystem classification systems.

The Ecosystem and Protected Areas Monitoring Database foresees in storage of detailed tracking data, physical data registration that allow characterisation varying from aquatic to desert ecosystems, physiognomic and floristic characterisation as well as detailed soil characterisation and water composition, and contains the following primary thematic forms:

The data set thus facilitates efficient characterisation of any ecosystem type, terrestrial or aquatic anywhere on earth.  Further, the database has been designed to store data relevant for monitoring the state of conservation of management areas as well as general environmental monitoring purposes, while the design allows expansion for almost any data set as required by the user. Although the objective was to link field observations to the Central America Ecosystems Map, it has been designed to function with ecosystem maps anywhere on earth. To this purpose, experienced biologists from a variety of regions of the world has been consulted. This way from the onset the database has been designed so that other countries can benefit from this invaluable experience in Central America. The use of the database and accompanying documentation are independent of the method applied.  It works well with the Braun-Blanquet system (Braun Blaquet 1921[4]), the UNESCO system, the USNVC (Grossman et al. 1998[5]) system the FAO/UNEP (di Gregorio and Jansen, 2000[6]) Land Cover Classification System (LCCS) and quantitative data registration methods of other ecological schools of thought. Additional parameters can be added according to the needs of individual user.

The objective of the manual is to provide ecological principles and methods for systematic data collection in the field in such a way that they can be stored in the Ecosystems Protected Areas Monitoring Database, and serve as a manual on the use of the database. For thorough understanding of the monitoring concepts, we recommand that you also download and read Comprehensive Protected Areas System Composition and Monitoring, which elaborates important considerations on why and how to monitor what.

Glosario de Términos de Biodiversidad

Glosario de términos Es un dictionario de casi 6000 términos en línea escrito por Dr. Maarten Kappelle (2004) con financiamiento de la Cooperación Español y publicado en línea por INBio de Costa Rica. (Spanish only) 

Field Forms

The field forms have been designed to match the visual forms in the database. No forms are needed for forms VIII - XI in the database.

The forms have been designed in such a way that they can be made at the two faces of a pages. We did this to avoid multiple pages, which particularly under field conditions can easily be mixes up. Such accident may make thausands of dollars worth of field work costs useless.

There are special formats for Taxa "fauna" and Taxa "flora, which we did to free up some space.

The Principles of biodiversity and protected Areas Monitoring

We currently have a draft document on the entire suite of data required for the management of protected areas systems, developed for the Inter American Biological Network, IABIN, a technical platform for the American Nations under the Organization of American States (OAS)

We wrote a document on the principles of Monitoring and Evaluation for the protected areas system in Honduras. While the case is country specific, the principles are basically world wide. We believe it is convenient to read a country specific document so that the material is very concrete and realistic. 

WICE is a worldwide non-government non-profit organization that contributes to the conservation of nature. While it works on many issues related to the conservation of nature and the protection of the environment, it is particularly committed to the conservation of national parks and other protected areas.

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