The Rimba Raya Biodiversity Reserve REDD Project

permanent 10-­‐20 km transects should be marked and walked ona continuous basis across all the major forest ecosystem types tomonitor tree-­‐by-­‐tree losses in the Project Zone. This approachwill provide direct evidence for individual trees losses (which maybe permitted in some areas for subsistence purposes) and arobust measure of effectiveness for protection measures.Ground surveys to monitor logging within the Project Zoneshould operate on a continuous basis with quarterly interimreports and an annual summary.Plant and Wildlife PopulationsThe fact that current hunting pressures and the incidence ofcapture of song birds for the commercial pet trade in the ProjectZone appears to be low means that a robust program formonitoring the success of forest protection efforts will serve as areasonably good proxy for success of overall biodiversityconservation efforts. However, such pressures could rise overtime, and off-­‐site impacts originating in oil palm plantations tothe north or climate change more generally could intensify. Asystem must be in place to ensure such impacts can be measuredover the duration of the project. For this reason, a monitoringprogram for targeted plant and wildlife populations in the ProjectZone should be developed.Such a monitoring program must include the following keyelements:Selection and justification of focal taxa for monitoringpurposes – this can be based on the status of individualspecies or guilds as iconic species, umbrella species,indicator species, top predators, or other keystonefunctions (e.g., predatory large forest cats; seed dispersalagents such as fruit bats, hornbills, or gibbons; stranglerfigs for frugivores; amphibians as indicators ofdisturbance).Selection and justification of parameters to be measured– alternatives include: (a) composition and diversity ofspecies within a guild or taxonomic group (e.g., all birds ormammals or herptofauna; tall canopy trees; all primatesor arboreal frugivores or understory birds); (b) populationsize and range movements of target taxa of exceptionalimportance (e.g., orangutan); or (c) changes in abundanceand distribution of indicators for disturbance, such asrelative abundance of closely related light-­‐loving versusshade-­‐dependent plant species (e.g., Macaranga versusMallotus in the plant family Euphorbiaceae). Development and justification of taxon-­‐specificapproaches to sampling – these must be adequate toquantify mean and variance of the parameters, and withsufficient replication to detect meaningful changes in theparameters over time. Determination and justification of data collectionschedules – should be at least once annually, but somedata collection will be essentially continuous, such asforest monitoring outlined above and orangutanpopulation surveys.Clarification and justification of analytical methods fordata analysis to ensure data are adequate to capturechanges in whatever parameters are being measured,such as population size for individual species of concern(e.g. orangutans), community composition, diversity, orspecies richness.Identification of who will do the data collection andanalysis, what forms of training will be required, and whocan deliver this training to increase local capacity both for268