Grassroots Indicators for Desertification: Experience and Perspectives from Eastern and Southern Africa

Grassroots indicators are defined here as measures or signals of environmental quality or change formulated by individuals, households, and communities, and derived from their local systems of observation, practice, and indigenous knowledge. As the papers in this book maintain, grassroots indicators should play a key role in the implementation of global agreements such as the Desertification Convention because they are critical for local-level evaluation and reporting on environmental change. Grassroots indicators can serve to augment national and regional environmental monitoring systems both temporally and spatially. Through them, local people can collaborate with scientists and researchers to improve desertification and drought indices, and so contribute to the effort of finding a solution to these global problems.