Part 1 – A Rapid Participatory Biodiversity Assessment - IUCN

IUCN Rapid Participatory Biodiversity Assessment
• Village Information Sheets – Each evening during the 2 field missions, assessment teams
discussed the information they had gathered that day and compiled short summaries of
each village. This included: basic description of the village; key problems faced by the
village; basic wealth and income statistics; landscape and land-overview; use of
biodiversity in the village; status and trends of biodiversity in the village and general
threats and a discussion about the management of this biodiversity. These sheets
provided important insights into each village and when combined a strong snapshot of
the landscapes and people in each district – see Field Examples in section 2 of the main
report.
• Landscapes and Livelihood assessments – using the Millennium Assessment’s
ecosystem services chart as a base, representative landscapes and the provision of
ecosystem services were then analysed for each district. A summary of the key findings
of this analysis is presented in section 3.6
• Species list consolidation – important secondary species data was consolidated with the
species information gathered on the two field missions. This information can be viewed in
annexes 3and4. These lists will be an important input into future biodiversity assessment,
monitoring and management.
• Mapping and GPS – Mapping information from government agencies (the National
Geographic Department, Department of Forestry and the National Agriculture and
Forestry Research Institute), from Burapha and GIS points from the IUCN assessment
teams were then mapped together. The results provided vital inputs into landscape
analysis and in the case of Nong and Taoy, analysis of the company’s feasibility mapping
with the information that the assessment teams had collected at the village level.
• Photos – A selection of photos from each village was collated to support the overall
analysis.
3. Final Stakeholder Consultations
A final stakeholder consultation meeting will be held in Savannakhet to share the results of this
biodiversity assessment with government and community representatives.
4. Methodology Limitations
The RPBA methodology allowed assessment teams to cover a large area in a very short time
period and to make informed judgements about the use, state, trends and threats to biodiversity
in the study area. The RPBA by its very nature does not allow for a comprehensive scientific
study of the intricacies of biodiversity and its importance to people in the study area.
In addition to this overarching limitation, the following constraints and limitations that may have
impacted data gathering should be noted:
• Weather and road conditions limited district representation at the Salavan stakeholders
meeting.
• The Savannakhet stakeholder meeting was held in Sepon to make it most accessible for
district officials and local stakeholders. As a result, representation from the provincial
level was minimal – especially from the civil society working in the area.
• Information on the assessment area is limited and dispersed across a number of
organisations. Remoteness, of the area seems be a critical factor in the limited
information available especially in hard to reach places such as Samoi where access by
road in Lao is limited to the dry season months.
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