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Local participation where traditional monitoring has failed; assessing the participatory monitoring of saigas (Saiga tatarica) in Kalmykia, Russia

Participatory monitoring aims to involve local people in monitoring natural resources in their communities. It has gained popularity in recent years as a method of collecting low cost ecological data while engaging people in conservation and increasing their awareness of ecological issues surrounding their natural resources. In many areas with high biodiversity local people have low scientific capacity, raising questions about the usefulness and accuracy of the data collected.

Evaluating the success of a public engagement project for the conservation of the Ural Saiga population in Kazakhstan

Awareness campaigns are employed in many situations as a form of environmental education, in order to raise awareness and knowledge of the participants. Aimed at adults and children alike, their overall aim is to foster positive attitudes and behaviour towards the target. It is also proposed that knowledge transfer between community members can multiply the effect of the campaign.

Trialling the Theory of Change approach to impact evaluation in conservation using the Saiga Conservation Alliance’s work in Uzbekistan as a case study

There is a need for high quality impact evaluation in conservation biology. In response to this need there is a growing body of work on how best to evaluate conservation interventions. However, often these methods are often too time consuming or resource heavy for small NGOs to carry out. I trialled the Theory of Change of approach to impact evaluation using the Saiga Conservation Alliance’s work in Uzbekistan as a case study. I used the approach to construct diagrammatic representations of the Theories of Change focusing on the threat of oil and gas companies and poaching to vulnerable populations of saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica) on the Ustyurt plateau.