370 Monitoring Threatened Species and Ecological Communities
communities), monitoring approach and level of engagement. The geographic scale
of projects vary from small dedicated projects such as orchid monitoring in South
Australia (Chapter 26) to very large Australia-wide projects such as BirdLife
Australia’s Bird Atlas Project (Chapter 28). Various organisations and practitioners
are involved in developing these projects – these include governments, non-
government organisations, community groups, Traditional Owners and
researchers (both university affiliated and independent). Certain programs,
particularly collaborations with Indigenous communities, incorporate local
knowledge and skills (e.g. animal tracking, Chapters 25, 27) into the monitoring
methodology. This enhances the quality and types of data that can be collected.
Many programs involve on-ground participation, either as part of organised field
work (e.g. fauna trapping, Chapters 25, 27) or self-organised such as the Bird Atlas.
However, other programs have taken advantage of new technology to enable
greater participation of people with low requirements for prior knowledge, fitness
and availability, and by not being location specific (e.g. online species identification
tasks, managed by WWF Wildlife Spotter; Chapter 27). Participation by
community groups brings with it many benefits to those involved, the monitoring
program and, importantly, threatened species conservation.
The benefits to monitoring programs from having community participation
include greater volumes of data (e.g. more people to collect or process data), as well
as greater coverage (e.g. access into otherwise inaccessible areas such as private
land or remote locations). Much knowledge can be tapped into by working with
local communities such as historical management activities or past records of
species. Indeed, community participation is a resource that could fill gaps in
agency-led monitoring programs (Chapter 26). Participation and involvement can
also lead to program advocacy, thus providing valuable support for the
continuation of programs, often causing them to outlast agency-directed
programs. A well-designed and managed community monitoring program can
also be cost-effective. Benefits to people involved in monitoring programs include
enriched knowledge of species and ecological communities, new skills that can
potentially lead to employment opportunities, social benefits of engaging with
other like-minded people, and the satisfaction (and empowerment) of contributing
to improved threatened species management.
Despite major benefits, community involvement in monitoring does come with
some challenges. The main issues highlighted relate to data quality and
consistency. Working with community groups means that there is a large
variability in health, fitness, availability and existing skills, plus the capacity to
learn new skills (or technology). Other issues relating to data quality include
observer bias with detection and also location selection; if there is freedom to
choose where monitoring occurs, more accessible (or attractive) locations are
generally monitored more often than those that are difficult to access (e.g. Chapter