The Toolkit will show you which techniques are the most effective and efficient for your team capacity, budget and timeline.
The Challenge
Dugongs and seagrass are under threat from human activities. By using this Toolkit you should be able to gather information to:
- understand better the status of dugongs, seagrass and communities at your research site;
- understand threats to dugongs and seagrasses and help find solutions to those threats;
- understand the communities that value or may affect dugongs and seagrasses.
You will also be helping to standardise data sets and methods across different countries and sites, allowing for better comparison of global dugong and seagrass conservation status.
Remember
- Good management needs robust information about the status of dugongs and seagrasses, and an understanding of the human communities that depend on or affect them.
- Evidence based conservation needs clear objectives and research questions.
- There are many techniques and tools for collecting data and processing information, each with different costs and value for management.
- This Toolkit will help you decide on the most appropriate approach to use. Sometimes you might need expert technical advice to make your best choices.
The Toolkit
This Toolkit will ask you questions about your research and help you to develop your research plan:
- WHAT information do you need?
- WHY do you need it?
- WHICH techniques are the most effective and efficient for your team capacity, budget and timeline?
- HOW to engage with local communities whose cooperation you will need?
This Toolkit will help you refine your research questions and provide you with a list of recommended techniques and tools to answer them.
The Audience
The Toolkit is designed for use by marine natural resource managers and decision-makers (government and non-government) and for dugong and seagrass researchers.
The Toolkit will assist organisations to assess funding proposals by describing the scope of work, choice of techniques and tools, and budget.