5. Monitoring and Evaluation
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Marta Nowack
“I need to create a new management plan for my forest area. I want to increase biodiversity and adapt my forest to climate change, whilst not changing much of our current way of doing things, and I would like to understand how to move forwards with this.”
Monitoring and evaluation are essential if you want to track the restoration progress and assess outcomes effectively. Monitoring is the continuous collection of data over time to detect changes, thus providing real-time insights into the effects of restoration activities. It may also cover continued observation of drivers of forest degradation. As monitoring helps you to detect emerging issues it enables you adjust your forest restoration strategy in a timely manner.
Monitoring and evaluation involve several key steps, including:
- the development of a monitoring design and evaluation plan according to the objectives and budget;
- the design of the data collection protocols and tools (equipment, field manuals, interview protocols or survey questionnaires);
- data collection, management and analysis (including data quality analysis);
- evaluation of the monitoring process to assess its efficiency and effectiveness.
These steps are described in subsequent subsections.
5.1 Monitoring and evaluation plan
Monitoring and evaluation are essential for determining whether restoration activities are meeting defined objectives. They provide measurable evidence on site conditions, ecosystem responses, and external factors, which is necessary for adaptive management.
5.2 Data collection
Data collection is a guide for systematic investments, which are capable of achieving a positive gain in biodiversity. It draws a contrast between resoration projects that focus on measuring additonal impacts of a restoration project and not simply the project inputs.