About this course
Ecological monitoring is a key aspect of protected areas management. Completing the 4 units will set the foundation to understanding what ecological monitoring is, and how it works. EM is a key component of adaptive management within a protected area, it is based on the surveillance of the environment, and consists in systematically collecting information over time, the aim being to answer one or more specific questions. It can also be implemented to compare data collected in the PA against predetermined standards in relation to a known standard, for example, a baseline condition (number of animals of a species at the beginning of the management cycle) or a desired state (what would be the optimum state of vegetation in absence of pressure?). Ecological monitoring calls on precise knowledge, it uses established techniques and requires specific data treatment.
What you’ll learn
• What is ecological monitoring? What is it for? How should it be implemented?
• What methods and techniques should be used? Why? How to implement them?
• What statistic tools do I need to know to develop a good monitoring?
• What are the particularities of monitoring depending on the environments and the species? What are the rules to follow?
The instructors
There are five instructors presenting this course: Geoffroy Mauvais (IUCN-Papaco), Béatrice Chataigner (IUCN-Papaco), Emmanuel HEMA (Ouagadougou University - Burkina Faso), Inza Koné (Félix Houphouët-Boigny University - Côte d'Ivoire) and Victor Panaretos (EPFL).
Other MOOCs on conservation
Go to mooc-conservation.org to see all our courses on nature conservation.