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Participatory monitoring
Participatory monitoring (also known as collaborative monitoring, community-based monitoring, locally-based monitoring or volunteer monitoring) is the regular collection of measurements or other kinds of data (monitoring), usually of natural resources and biodiversity, undertaken by local people who live in the area being monitored, who rely on local natural resources, and consequently have great local knowledge of those resources. The people involved usually live in communities with considerable social cohesion where they regularly work together on shared projects.

Participatory monitoring has emerged as an alternative or addition to professional scientist-executed monitoring. Scientist-executed monitoring is often costly and hard to sustain, especially in those regions of the world where financial resources are limited. Moreover, scientist-executed monitoring can be logistically and technically difficult and is often perceived to be irrelevant by resource managers and the local communities. Involving local people and their communities in monitoring is often part of the process of sharing the management of land and resources with the local communities. It is connected to the devolution of rights and power to the locals. Aside from potentially providing high-quality information,  participatory monitoring can raise local awareness and build the community and local government expertise that is needed for addressing the management of natural resources.

Participatory monitoring is sometimes included in terms such as citizen science, crowd-sourcing, ‘public participation in scientific research’ and participatory action research.