Biodiversity assessment and monitoring in protected areas is normally, and most appropriately, carried out as part of a management planning process. It is therefore suggested that these guidelines are read and used in conjunction with appropriate guidance on management planning within protected areas. However, in some protected areas, management plans may not have been prepared, or may not deal with biodiversity issues in detail. Some advice is therefore given in Chapter 2 on key aspects of management planning so that biodiversity assessments can be carried out and monitoring programmes established in the absence of a detailed biodiversity management plan.An introduction to biodiversity assessments, with emphasis on participatory approaches is given in Chapter 3, however, it is beyond the scope of these guidelines to give detailed practical advice on this subject, and therefore the reader is directed to some recommended references for further information.Chapter 4 provides guidance on the key practical considerations and decisions involved in establishing a protected area monitoring programme. This primarily focuses on issues concerned with selecting field methods and survey sampling strategies that would be carried out by trained staff or contractors. However, many of the key principles, such as those associated with sampling, may also be applicable to participatory approaches (e.g. selection of sample villages for holding interviews). The chapter includes some brief advice on statistical analysis of monitoring data, but again this subject is too large to deal with in detail here.