Measurement of durability’s indicators of agro-ecological production systems in Talamanca.
APPTA has developed and established a system and tools intended to the measurement of durability’s indicators for the agro-ecological production system of Talamanca and in particular for the organic farms of APPTA’s members.

In APPTA’s internal control system, along the set work which permit to obtain the certifications, it has been established a system to measure the durability’s indicators. It permits us to measure what is our impact on following variables: production, diversification, conservation of the natural resources, distribution of the produced resources in the family unit, life conditions, self-sufficiency and associative life. With the goal of refining this tool, we have included two new indicators to measure the impact on fauna and flora.

In spite of starting this process in 2003, because of a lack of resources, we haven’t been able to tabulate our data. However, this work has been realized in 2007 thanks to the support of the IUCN (International Union for the Conservation of Nature). Below is a summarized chart and a graph realized with the data from 2003 to 2007. For the measurement of the impact it has been used a range which fluctuates between 0 and 2.

New indicators to measure flora and fauna.

Measurement of the impact on flora and fauna has started in 2008. It is based on indicators which involve species (fishes, birds and plants) and ecosystems (streams, rivers, banks and forests). Inspectors who develop this work in the communities have been trained to recognize, by seeing or by hearing, the different species and to evaluate the ecosystems.

To make easier the work, they lean on two plates which illustrate:

• The 25 types of birds
• The 3 types of fishes and the macro invertebrate
• The 28 types of trees and plants

Information is then put by the inspectors in a device which permits to qualify the ecosystem’s conditions and the presence of species.