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
3
.
1
. Framework and limitations For mountainous regions in general it is very
useful to use the watershed concept to limit the study area, as it provides not only a unit in water
regime, but also defines human settlements and
allocation of space for agriculture and forestry activities, and presents a certain barrier to human
interactions. The general framework developed to identify indicators and assess the various method-
ological steps to be taken is presented in Fig. 2. It is assumed that the conditions of the resources in
a defined watershed change over space and time, influenced by driving internal and external forces
that have some effects on the community state. Qualitative and quantitative indicators of the
state of production factors and the environment can define the resource conditions. The changes in
these conditions and their resulting effects on production, income, welfare and distribution
define whether or not a development path in the watershed is more or less sustainable in ecologi-
cal, economic and social terms. The study iden- tified and assessed indicators of landscape mosaic,
soil fertility, water resources, as well as produc- tion systems and extractive activities, economic
and social performance, and institutions, both of which were produced by the local population as
well as by the researchers. The approach at- tempted to be sensitive to local knowledge and to
the perceptions of change at the community level. Researchers and local people outlined a general
sustainable watershed vision considering the basic human needs and the maintenance of life support
systems for current and future generations. Iden- tification and assessment of autochthonous indi-
cators was achieved through intensive discussions on relevant issues related to community develop-
ment. A consensus and feedback process between local people and researchers was reached through
constant interviews with individuals, focal groups, and through community workshops. A sustain-
ability vision was developed for each indicator during the research process. Indicators should
reflect the concern of local people and describe relevant aspects of community development. It
was difficult to determine quantitative targets, but the desired directions in which the indicators are
expected to develop in the future, ecological, eco- nomic and social welfare of the community are to
be improved, were defined. A further constraint was to establish safe minimum standards, with the
exception of minimum space for shifting cultiva- tion, fire wood extraction, pesticide contamina-
tion in drinking water and nutrition status of children. The indicator definition and assessment
contained strong value judgement elements, as they should be meaningful to the local popula-
Fig. 1. General map and La Lima watershed in Honduras, Central America.
Fig. 2. Steps of the sustainability assessment procedure and indicator framework in the La Lima watershed.
tion, sensitive to changed management practices, but also valid from a scientific point of view. The
concept of sustainability demands a holistic and intersectoral approach in order to show trade-offs
among development tendencies. One tried to iden- tify the interrelations between the indicators by
describing the overall tendencies in the develop- ment path of the watershed area.
3
.
2
. Methods This intensive study was performed during the
period from 1993 to 1997. A broad range of methods with emphasis in participatory ap-
proaches have been used. These and laboratory methods are described in detail in the thematic
studies mentioned in Table 1. Only a brief overview is given here. The research team was
trained in participatory methods and interview techniques Falck et al., 1996a,b. As this research
had a substantial participatory component, vari- ous workshops were organized to allow interac-
tion with the local farmers and elicit their knowledge. The first workshops, which included
men, women and children, were organized to present the study objectives and to record com-
munity history, perform community input – output analysis, sociological games, to elaborate commu-
nity sketch maps and to discuss problems related to natural resources management in the commu-
nity. For example, a puppet theater was per- formed to interest and motivate community
members to participate actively in the subsequent discussions about a sustainability vision, land
management, and other related themes in commu- nity development. This was followed by a series of
field trips for transept studies of the whole water- shed and in which their plots were visited and
land use practices and history were recorded. In other workshops, the local farmers presented their
perceptions and concepts about soil degradation processes and their use of vegetation succession
stages as indicators for degraded soil and rehabil- itation processes. Household visits for semi-struc-
tured interviews were made for data recollection by researchers of the sectoral studies and addi-
tionally an agricultural census was performed IF- PRI and EAP, 1995. The study period covered a
period of about 20 years, from 1975 to 1995, and change of land use was assessed over a period of
40
years from
1955 to
1995 using
aerial photographs.
4. Results and discussion
