Conservation and Biodiversity Monitoring in the Tropics: Realities, Priorities, and Distractions

Monitoring and research activities may hinder rather than improve conservation in tropical countries. Those concerned with conservation—particularly academics and aid agencies—too often overlook the practical realities of achieving conservation in the tropics. As a result, many initiatives divert scarce resources away from fundamental management priorities. I identify some critical threats to biodiversity and emphasize the limited resources for defending against them. I then define practical conservation priorities and explain how external agencies can deflect management from addressing these. After outlining some examples, I suggest various contributory factors, and a few commonsense options for improved practice. My views derive principally from protected forests in Africa over the last decade, but the concerns have wider relevance to conservation (cf. Sayer 1995; Balmford et al. 1998; Wells et al. 1999).