25 – Threatened species monitoring on Aboriginal land^323and society are not drawn, as they are in Western culture (Christie 2006). The two
knowledge bases may also operate on different management scales, with
Indigenous knowledge more focused on a local scale whereas the Western
approach may be directed at the scale of national priorities (Wohling 2009).
Knowledge integration and involvement of Indigenous people in monitoring and
natural resource management is a process that must go beyond conservation
priorities to recognise the social identity and perspective of the people (Gratani et
al. 2011), as well as local needs and expectations.
Building collaborations and capacity
There is large variation in the capacity and imperative that Indigenous people have
to participate in monitoring and natural resource management. This may be
inf luenced by how advanced Indigenous people and corporations are on the path
to gaining Native Title or Indigenous Protected Areas, the funding environment
for Ranger work and governance arrangements (the processes and structures by
which decisions are made and power is shared) within Indigenous corporations. In
some instances, Indigenous corporations may have in-house expertise, while others
may benefit from collaborations with external scientists to develop scientifically
robust, community-led monitoring programs that can guide management (Moller
et al. 2004).
A best-practice approach to developing a collaborative monitoring program
includes an initial stage to identify the complementary objectives of the monitoring
partners and develop a program that finds common ground between Indigenous
and Western approaches and priorities. It is imperative that external scientists
travel to communities and country to develop relationships and establish open
communication, as well as allowing adequate time for community members to
convene separately to make decisions. Sufficient time, money and resources also
need to be allocated to reaching mutually beneficial agreements pertaining to
intellectual property rights, as well as agreements on remuneration.
Through knowledge exchange, partners can identify how to best incorporate
IBK and western science approaches for monitoring and conservation. Either or
both knowledge systems may provide the initial impetus to embark upon
monitoring, and inform the survey methods, the data to collect and the outputs
that are created. Local knowledge often provides prior information on
distributions, ecology and habitat use of target species while statistical principles
are important to guide the over-arching design to ensure the program can detect
the patterns that are of interest (e.g. Guillera-Arroita and Lahoz-Monfort 2012).
Western science can also help ensure that data are collected in a way that can
inform national or state conservation priorities.
For monitoring programs to be long-lasting and achieve conservation
outcomes, the programs need to have direct value to, and be directed or co-