Table 4 Types of monitoring and local participation for each zone of the Participatory Land Use Planning (PLUP) Land use zone Purpose Type of monitoring Local participation Village residential area Housing, temple, school, health centre, shops etc. Livelihood (all the livelihood indicators) monitoring Yes Conservation forest Fauna and flora conservation, non prohibited NTFP collection NTFP monitoring selleckchem Yes Forest surface estimated with GIS, biodiversity and species richness measured in plots No Spirit or sacred forest Cemetery, spiritual forests Not relevant Not relevant Protection forest Steep slopes, fragile soils, watershed, regeneration of degraded forests, non prohibited

NTFP collection, tree seed collection NTFP monitoring, soil and water quality monitoring Yes Forest surface estimated with GIS No Forest use Village NTFP collection, fuel wood, construction material, medicinal purpose, fencing learn more NTFP monitoring Yes Agricultural zone Lowland/upland rice production, fruit tree planting, commercial tree planting, livestock grazing, fish ponds NTFP monitoring (fishes, domesticated NTFP), soil monitoring (plants used as indicators of fertility) and livelihood monitoring (livestock, rice sufficiency)

Yes Potential land for commercial tree planting Commercial tree planting, commercial livestock raising, commercial annual crops, fishes NTFP monitoring (fishes and commercial domesticated NTFPs) and livelihood monitoring Yes Other areas Recreation, irrigation Livelihood monitoring Yes PLUP needs to predict and take Miconazole into account events that could disrupt both planning and monitoring activities. This became evident during the testing of our methods, which were selleck chemicals disrupted severely by gold mining. Limitations to the development of an effective

natural resource monitoring In 2010–2011, gold mining in the Nam Xuang River severely affected Muangmuay Kumban; the river’s ecosystem was destroyed leaving villagers downstream without any fish resources. Official gold exploitation started in November 2010, giving rise to a rapid, uncontrolled spread of registered and unofficial miners. In July 2011, the local government put a stop to all gold mining in the area (Vilaphong, personal communication, 2013). The gold mining happened at a time PLUP was still under discussion and different steps had not been implemented in the kumban. The district authorities did not have the legal planning tool to prevent the uncontrolled mining and damage to the environment. There was also a clear lack of coordination between the district and provincial authorities on the issuing of mining concessions and villagers were not part of any negotiation. All but two of our target villages (Donkeo and Houaykhone) were affected by gold mining.