Evaluating and Adapting Multidisciplinary Landscape Assessment in Forest-Dependent Communities in the Northern Bolivian Amazon

Evans, K.; Jong, W. de. ; Miranda, P.; Cronkleton, P. 2006.

Abstract

Multidisciplinary Landscape Assessment (MLA) is a series of participatory tools developed by CIFOR for collecting and analyzing data about natural resources and communities and the perceptions of the local people on the importance and use of these resources. Previous implementations of MLA have emphasized data collection and analysis, typically involving three weeks of field work and a team of experts as well as paid assistants from the community. However, in the northern Bolivian Amazon, resources are extremely limited, and there is a dearth of trained technicians. To be viable, MLA would have to be simpler, faster, more cost-effective, more participatory and less reliant on specialists. We believed that by changing the approach of MLA, transforming MLA into a capacity-building process through which the community members learned how to do all of the methods and then did the work themselves, we would be able to achieve these objectives. We adapted MLA into a one-week series of activities – maps, inventories of natural resources, family register, participatory workshops, GPS, transects, interviews – which communities could learn and adopt as instruments of resource management. While we collected data too, our emphasis was on developing capacity and listening to the evaluations and feedback of the experience by all local actors: communities, local government, local and national conservation and development institutions. The modified version of MLA proved to be an effective first step towards developing management mechanisms within the communities, providing the communities with useful tools and information to negotiate for land rights with government and develop Brazil nut management plans.

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