Ongoing Monitoring and Future Aims & Objectives

Monitoring activities will be developed by IBSAR staff and will be transferred to local community members and students. Monitoring will focus on the success of the planting initiatives and potential impacts in light of climate change. Involving local communities in the monitoring will ensure long term data collection which will help establish trends that will in turn provide valuable data for future tree planting initiatives.

In order for IBSAR to fulfill our vision in order “for societies to become guardians and primary beneficiaries of biodiversity in the region”, we must help to facilitate their transition back to nature and their traditions.  It is imperative that we prepare local members of the community to understand the importance of biodiversity. It is possible, due to the fact that biodiversity is an abstract scientific term to most laypersons, to place it within the context of preserving ones cultural and natural heritage. In essence, one of the main challenges for IBSAR will be this challenge in addressing the importance of and the issues relating to biodiversity and its current loss on the global front.

Furthermore, while we establish more solidarity with our ongoing objectives, we are effectively making an effort to bring biodiversity and the products and services it offers societies, in ecological and economic terms.  We are essentially attempting to bridge academic disciplines and functions, such as with conservation and agriculture (e.g. agrobiodiversity), agroforestry and economics (e.g. NTFPs/NWFPs), while studying the cultural significance of plants and animals to human beings (i.e. ethnobiology). In order for conservation centers to progress and meet the needs of current times, we must essentially expand our horizons and consolidate goals such as mitigating climate change, preserving and encouraging biodiversity conservation, while reducing poverty and improving livelihoods. It will take many hands, hearts, and minds to tackle the current problems in the world, but we can only do this together, one seed at a time.