Part 1 – A Rapid Participatory Biodiversity Assessment - IUCN

IUCN Rapid Participatory Biodiversity Assessment
• There were some problems with official communications within the Savannakhet
Agriculture and Forestry administrative hierarchy, causing difficulty in making official
contact with some villages.
• Recent village consolidations in Sepon district meant that basic demographic and socioeconomic
data in many villages was incomplete, outdated or completely lacking.
• Language proved difficult in some villages where locals did not speak Lao well. This
impacted particularly on the results of species identification – some species were only
identified in the local language. For scientific quality reasons, this information could not
be used in the final species analysis.
• The rapid nature of the survey meant that women’s participation in the focus groups was
not as high as hoped, although the team found that transect walks are an excellent way
of providing voice to women.
• The villagers tended to withhold information on exploitation of animal species, in the
presence of government officials
• Some of the information provided by villagers seemed to be contradictory, and time was
a constraint in verifying such information.
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