Monitoring is a fundamental part of LIFE Bear-Smart Corridors to assess the effectiveness and impact of all actions and adjust our approach where needed, to achieve our objectives and common goals.
D1. Monitoring the development of the Bear Smart Communities
Monitoring the development of Bear-Smart Communities is of fundamental importance if we want to learn about and improve their positive impact on the (Marsican) brown bear populations in the landscape. This includes careful monitoring of landscape/habitat use by bears, their numbers and dispersal on the one hand, and on the other hand monitoring of the level of stakeholder involvement and (inter)action in the Communities.
D2. Monitoring of the effectiveness of conservation interventions
This action foresees to continue the monitoring of (potential) conflict situations and assesses the effectiveness of the conservation interventions. The effectiveness of damage prevention structures will be assessed through a series of continued follow-up visits by professionally trained personnel in the farms in which they have been installed. We will use cameras to monitor the use of the water wells by wildlife and the effectiveness of bear-proof waste bins.
D3. Monitoring the impact on the local community and stakeholders
With this action we aim to evaluate the opinions of local communities and stakeholders regarding the impact of our joined actions and their success in improving local coexistence with bears. This will include surveys across several stakeholder groups and representatives of municipalities. Analyses will be conducted to detect significant changes in attitudes towards bear presence and conservation.
D4. Monitoring of the capacity building and training activities
This action is designed to monitor the success of sharing knowledge and best practices in the capacity building workshops. To this end, quizzes and questionnaires will be distributed to the participants before and after the workshops for monitoring the output. We aim for a greater understanding among participants about bear ecology and behaviour, how to behave in bear habitat and in case of a bear encounter and actions that can enhance human-bear coexistence.