field observation

The distribution is presented in 1 km-grids, based on vegetation relevés and digitized data from herbarium specimen, photos, literature and field surveys. Releves date back to 1880.

Field observations of over 100 Kunukus from September 2021. The observations have primarilly been used to validate a visual interpretation of satelite imagery of Kunuku use  (Jailani et al., 2020), from which fields a random sample was drawn (Lazebnik et al., 2022).

Observations characterized:

• Kunuku - in use / not in use (based on state of overgrowth)
• Cactus fence state- absent / poor / partial / good

This document can act as a guideline in the field. It can be used to check back on the exact methodology for each of the measurements. It is a part of the monitoring protocol developed by BonBèrdè for STINAPA. All necessary information to perform the fieldwork should be here. It is therefore advised to bring this document in the field every time while conducting the fieldwork. This field guide contains different steps, alongside other necessary information. Step A-B includes the activities for setting up the sample plots in the field. As the sample plots for this monitoring study are permanent, meaning they will be visited repeatedly, these steps do not have to be included in any consecutive years of monitoring. Steps 1-3 consist of the steps taken in regard to the measurements of the different factors. These steps are the actual data collection and form the main part of the monitoring. This monitoring location is in the Washington Slagbaai National Park (WSNP).

This report describes a field visit to the Caribbean island of Bonaire aiming at collection of field data on the arid vegetation, which consists largely of dry thorn scrub, cactus scrub and dry tropical forest. Vegetation releves have been amde at 23 sites, among which eight sites that have been surveyed in 1999. Besides 50 short field descriptions have been made as a basis for a land-use map. The report describes how the more than 1000 releves of the Dutch Caribbean islands, which are stored in the vegetation database CACTUS, may be analysed to provide insight in natural processes like vegetation succession and effects of land use, climate change and other factors. Besides, the report contains an advice for the representative Ministry of Agriculture, Nature and Food Quality on the island about the (better) conservation of sites on the limestone terraces with very well developed woodland.

Locations of field observations of vegetation. The observations were used as basis for this map as described in this report.

The roughly 300 locations were digitized from paper field forms (1999).