3. Monitoring is an essential element of ecosystem
management, in that it is in intended to detect
long-term ecosystem change, provide insights
to the potential ecological consequences of the
change, and help decision makers determine
how management practices should be implemented.
Monitoring may be used as a starting
point to define baseline conditions, understand
the range of current variability in certain
parameters and detect desirable and undesirable
changes over time within reserve areas and
adjacent ecosystems.