This Inspiring Practice describes how WWF and its partners worked under the leadership of IDEAM with participatory community-based forest monitoring initiatives throughout Colombia to build greater connection, communication, technical capacity, and trust–both among these initiatives and between them and the agencies tasked with forest monitoring at the national level. Beginning with an inventory of and outreach to local monitoring efforts, and then unfolding through a series of meetings reflecting on the actions of monitoring at different scales and practical workshops in which community monitors engaged directly with IDEAM and its partners, this work strengthened local-to-national integration and led to the establishment of national guidelines for participatory monitoring. It also created an effective and empowering collaborative network for community monitoring initiatives, through which monitors can exchange information, organize for advocacy, and connect over shared concerns, challenges, and achievements.
