As the Pelican Point Revegetation Project demonstrates (discussed above), a monitoring and evaluation program can be undertaken collectively in a way that is meaningful to community groups. Participatory Evaluation for Landcare and Catchment Groups: A guide for facilitators 393 offers a useful tool to engage landcare and catchment groups in monitoring and evaluation. Sections include a simple four-step monitoring and evaluation model, how to make evaluation a community activity, how to structure an evaluation and tips and tools for participatory evaluation.

A large number of excellent monitoring guides have been specifically developed for community groups in different parts of Australia. These tend to relate to specific regions. A more general guide, one that offers scope for community groups to select elements that are most relevant to their project, is Tracking Your Community Vegetation Project 394. Although developed for Queensland groups, it is relevant elsewhere. The idea is to help community members develop longer-term records of changes for project sites. It includes a large suite of simple, effective monitoring techniques, many of which provide cost and time-effective monitoring options. Users can pick and choose techniques that are relevant to their project, datasheets can be photocopied and most activities can be undertaken by group members. The guide also contains a comprehensive list of resources.

A growing number of community monitoring guides are being developed for specific catchments across Australia. For example, Guidelines for Monitoring a Bushcare Project 395 have been developed for the Hawkesbury-Nepean Catchment in NSW. This manual is designed for community groups who wish to collect standardised datasets that are able to contribute to land management agencies (e.g. local governments). It explores the question “What is community environmental assessment and monitoring?” and provides a range of rapid assessment checklists for monitoring activities including plant lists, photo points, quadrat mapping, weed invasion mapping, and survival rates of plantings. The same group has produced a second manual, Guidelines for Assessing and Monitoring Sclerophyll Bushland Health 396. As well as explaining the concepts of resilience, remnant vegetation, connecting corridors and biodiversity, it provides five standardised rapid assessment checklists to measure site features, a detailed site traverse, biodiversity, habitat and site disturbances as well as an overall scoring system to identify management actions.