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The Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT) has descended from various attempts employed to effectively and sustainably manage globally highly threatened forest protected/conserved areas (HTFPA). Primarily, the development of METT has been propelled by the growing interest in protected area management effectiveness (PAME) that pushed to the deliberate measures taken by the World Bank/WWF (World Wildlife Fund) Alliance for Forest Conservation and Sustainable Use to track effective management targets in order to maintain and secure HTFPA. The motivation behind METT development was initially based around the interests of the World Commission on Protected Areas (WCPA), which is one of the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) commissions. Since then METT has undergone a number of upgrades with major releases of METT-1 (2002), METT-2 (2005), METT-3 (2007), and the current version released in 2020 which is the 4th version of the METT, that is METT-4. To date, METT has been widely adapted to power PAME assessments to ensure security and sustainability of the protected/conserved world's forest biodiversity, forest-based goods, many other essential sites, and their associated services in order to determine how effective such areas, goods, and services are managed as indicated by the extent to which they protect values in order to achieve their set goals and objectives (WCPA PA Guidelines, no 14, 2006). METT-4 supersedes a long-standing and over a decade extensively used METT-3 following the WWF handbook published in 2016 that suggested various changes, improvements, and upgrades. METT-4 comes with a significant number of changes that have been a consistent concern on the previous versions of METT: the tool now uses an Excel file (as opposed to the word document that has been used in the previous versions of METT) with a number of functions for managing data and presenting the results, updated questions to address the current relevant issues in relation to protected/conserved areas (vital sites) such as climate change, logically reordered questions that have eased the METT usage, and is more focused on the assessment of outcomes than ever before. These changes collectively address the increasing technological advances and numerous innovative approaches in implementation, and a number of new PAME-related managerial issues, making the current METT tool more effective for adaptive management. Today, the use and adaptation of METT are rapidly increasing, declaring it the de facto standard PAME tool, used in over 2,500 protected areas covering about 4.2 million square kilometers in at least 127 countries (Stolton, S. and Dudley, N. (2016)). This means, although METT was primarily designed and intended to be used in the assessment of protected areas as recognized by IUCN and the Convention on Biological Diversity, it is continuously being adapted for use in other areas, such as community forests, by protected area agencies, and in regional protected areas initiatives. The METT tool has the potential to be adapted for diverse other assessments.
The New METT-4 Tool Contents
The latest version of METT (METT-4) is a result of significant modification of the previous METT version and is built on adaptations made by various communities around the globe and on the work of the Global Environment Facility (GEF) and other funders who use the METT tool. This tool uses the excel file (excel workbook) as the background database for data collection and the form that serves as a questionnaire. This form contains 38 multiple-choice questions, each with four alternative responses of different weightings ranging from 0 (poor) to 3 (excellent). Multiple-choice questions are associated with options to provide reasons for making a particular choice, and for adding more detailed information on the data sources if data is available to support a response, and also for adding information about the necessary steps to be taken to improve management if possible. The newly added questions address the current management issues which include climate change, staff security, and connectivity [4]. Furthermore, this new tool places more emphasis on outcomes by incorporating additional worksheets that allow for more detailed assessments of community relation, planning processes, natural and cultural values conditions, the key species, and habitats [3, 4]. Moreover, apart from the increased number of multiple-choice research/survey questions from 30 to 38, questions in the new METT version have also been re-ordered to a more logical flow.
Sections of The METT-4 Tool
The METT-4 is divide into two main sections:
- The first section consists of datasheets (excel workbook) that collect basic information on the protected/conserved area and its characteristics, threats, and management objectives, and details of the organization that carried out the assessment. In particular, this METT-4 section is composed of the following worksheets/components/elements:
- Introduction: This worksheet provides an overview and guidelines on the best practices to be followed for successfully conducting any PAME assessment.
- Protected Areas Attributes: This worksheet compiles basic information associated with the protected/conserved area such as its location, name, size, and date of its establishment, etc. The worksheet also presents the baseline information crucial for the remaining assessment including values, main ecosystem services, and management objectives ((Stolton, S. and Dudley, N. (2016))). The worksheet has a list of questions, room for an answer, space for any notes that help to clarify the answer, and a notes column that includes short guidance (Stolton, S. and Dudley, N. (2016)).
- Detailed Assessment of Threats: This worksheet has enough room for detailed descriptions of threats examining both extent and severity, and it includes room to add source information and management responses.
"In this context, threats are the human activities or processes that have caused, are causing, or may cause the destruction, degradation, and/or impairment of biodiversity targets (e.g., unsustainable fishing or logging). Threats can be past (historical), ongoing, and/or likely to occur in the future." (Stolton, S. and Dudley, N. (2016)). - Questions + Scores: This sheet contains a list of all the multiple-choice questions in the METT-4. It also contains the column named "Your METT score" that will be automatically filled in as one goes through the METT questions and scores them.
- Dashboard: The excel version of METT-4 has a dashboard that automatically presents a visual interpretation summary of the assessment as it is completed. "The Dashboard also presents summarized data on threats and on more detailed outcomes information regarding the condition of values and status and trend of species and habitats." (Stolton, S. and Dudley, N. (2016), [3]).
- The second section of the METT-4 tool comprises an assessment questionnaire form that captures a composite measurement across 38 parameters incorporating all six components (planning, process, inputs, outputs, outcomes, and context) of the IUCN WCPA Framework [3].
METT-4 is built on an Excel file with a workbook and an assessment form developed by the German state-owned investment and development bank, KFW (Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau ) which is based in Frankfurt for assessment of their projects. The tool is designed in such a way all the survey/research questions (sections) must be considered and completed. This is because questions have been carefully designed to fit diverse PAME assessments with options to customize if appropriate to suit particular needs. New questions can be added and/or existing questions can be edited and re-ordered if needed. METT-4 is an online tool that can be integrated into devices such as tablets and distributed, an approach that makes it easier to fill, hence speeding up the PAME assessment processes.
METT-4 Results Action Plan
METT-4 has a facility to export into a separate excel sheet all the actions indicated under the multiple-choice section for the purpose of making the development of an action plan easier.
How METT-4 Works in Research Data Collection
The excel version of METT-4 utilizes the underlying excel sheets and an assessment form for data collection. It contains a blank master excel workbook that can be used multiple times to generate many completed copies.
METT-4 Customization
Customization means METT-4 has options to add new questions, edit existing questions, or re-ordering them to suit a particular need. This provides anyone with an opportunity to modify the METT-4 tool appropriately to suit his/her local needs as deemed necessary.
Creating Electronic METT-4 on Tablet
Integrating METT-4 with tablets can be seamlessly achieved. We can upload and download the METT-4 files (workbook) with the Google Sheets app for Android. The app supports importing a diverse number of file formats such as XLS, XLSX, XLSM, CSV, ODS, and TSV, which can be opened and edited. The app also supports exporting files into formats like XLSX, ODS, PDF, and as a web page (HTML as a ZIP). Please refer to the related approach, tssfl-odf-odk-collect-and-google-drive- ... -data-6425 that we used to integrate ODK Collect to TSSFL Open Discussion Forums for automated research processes via Google Drive.
References
1. Stolton, S. and Dudley, N. (2016). METT Handbook: A guide to using the Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool (METT). Woking, UK: WWF
2. Stolton, S., Hockings, M., Dudley, N., MacKinnon, K., Whitten, T. and Leverington, F. (2007). Management Effectiveness Tracking Tool. Reporting Progress at Protected Area Sites. Gland, Switzerland: WWF
3. https://www.protectedplanet.net/en/them ... e?tab=METT
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