Altieri, 1995; Reardon and Vosti, 1995. Most decisions on natural resource management are
made at farm or community level. To do so, a minimum set of criteria and indicators have to be
defined for monitoring development paths in these fragile ecosystems. The objective of this study is
to make a contribution in defining and assessing indicators at community level in a mountainous
region, adopting ecological, economic and social dimensions, to elicit the conflicting objectives in
development, and to discuss their practical impli- cations and the challenge to apply them at a wider
scale. Some specific indicators used are described in detail in the case of land use change Kammer-
bauer and Ardo´n, 1999, pesticide residues Kam- merbauer
and Moncada,
1998 and
land degradation and rehabilitation Paniagua et al.,
1999. Special attention is given to autochthonous indicators for a sustainable development. The re-
sults obtained by this intensive study of a typical watershed for mountainous regions are briefly
presented. Section 2 describes the site selection process and provides some information about the
site studied. Section 3 provides a summary of the general conceptual framework for the indicator
identification and the assessment steps, together with the study methods used. In Section 4 the
indicators identified are presented and assessed. In Section 5 the community development paths and
perspectives are discussed. Section 6 is comprised of some conclusions for policy design and moni-
toring systems.
2. Site selection and description
The research was carried out during the period from 1994 to 1997. Site selection was developed
by drawing on preliminary indicators of environ- mental
degradation and
community activity
Molina, 1994. The Yeguare river valley in the central region of Honduras comprises an area of
about 276 km
2
containing 54 villages. Agricultural extensionists working in the area mapped the
actual land used and assessed the extent of actu- ally observed environmental degradation and
degradation risk. On the basis of these results, a selected grouping of villages was visited by the
research team who established a weighting matrix for environmental degradation and community
activity for each village evaluated. The watershed of La Lima was finally selected for a detailed
analysis of the causal relationships due to its high ranking index for potential environmental degra-
dation and an above average index of community activity. The watershed is not representative in a
statistical sense, but it is a typical region in Cen- tral America in terms of its hillside feature, its
economic subsistence and its traditional social structure.
The La Lima watershed 87°25W, 14°00N has an area of about 9.5 km
2
and is located 17 km away from Tegucigalpa Fig. 1. The altitude
varies between 1200 and 1668 m above sea level with an annual precipitation ranging from 885 to
1182 mm, with a dry period normally spanning from November to April and a rainy season from
May to October. The average temperature is 21.4°C, varying with the altitude, and the natural
vegetation is largely pine forest up to about 1600 m, with broadleaf forest above this altitude; these
are characterized by a high diversity of mosses Bryophyta, lichens Lichenes, bromeliads Fam-
ily Bromeliaceae and orchids Family Orchi- daceae. The watershed is characterized by a very
irregular topographic structure with steep slopes at the borders and a plain area in the center, with
permanent springs and creeks and lagoons in the plain. The principal La Lima community consists
of a dense settlement of 62 family units as well as a more dispersed community in the surrounding
area, comprising of 119 family units in total. Agricultural production consists in a traditional
corn-bean system with fallow periods, and inten- sive production of potato, tomato, onions, and
garlic.
3. Study methodology
