摘要：Biological resource monitoring systems are implemented in many countries and often depend on the participationof local people. It has been suggested that these systems empower local participants while promoting conservation. We reviewedthree wildlife monitoring systems in indigenous lands and sustainable development reserves in Brazilian Amazonia and one inNamibian Caprivi conservancies, analyzing the strategies adopted and conditions that facilitated local empowerment, as wellas potential impacts on conservation. This provided insights into potential avenues to strengthen empowerment outcomes ofmonitoring systems in Latin America and Africa. We assessed four dimensions of empowerment at individual and communityscales: psychological, social, economic, and political. The conditions that facilitated local empowerment included the value ofnatural resources, rights to trade and manage resources, political organization of communities, and collaboration by stakeholders.The wide range of strategies to empower local people included intensifying local participation, linking them to local education,feeding information back to communities, purposefully selecting participants, paying for monitoring services, marketingmonitored resources, and inserting local people into broader politics. Although communities were socially and politicallyempowered, the monitoring systems more often promoted individual empowerment. Marketing of natural resources promotedhigher economic empowerment in conservancies in Namibia, whereas information dissemination was better in Brazil becauseof integrated education programs. We suggest that practitioners take advantage of local facilitating conditions to enhance theempowerment of communities, bearing in mind that increasing autonomy to make management decisions may not agree withinternational conservation goals. Our comparative analysis of cases in Latin America and Africa allows for a greater understandingof the relationships between resource monitoring systems, local empowerment, and conservation
