APC_1.3.7_30

Despite its well-thought structure and policy relevance (Section 1.5), the Asia-Pacific Regional Assessment, as any other assessment of its kind, relies on secondary sources of information, with all their limitations. The completeness and timeliness of this information posed some substantial limitations for achieving perfectly the seven principles that guided this assessment (Section 1.3.1).
First of all, due to the variable quality and completeness of used datasets (as well as the political/security sensitivity that sometimes accompanied them), it has not been always possible to access reliable data from (and thus provide complete estimates for) all subregions. Some areas are particularly under-researched and data-deficient such as Western Asia, Hindu-Kush Himalayas and small Pacific Islands. Furthermore while we aimed to synthesize recent information (post-2010), this was not always feasible, as some key datasets are not compiled at regular intervals.
While there were active efforts to integrate and synthesize ILK with modern scientific (Section 1.3.5) this was not always feasible. For example, several ILK practices and practical information generated through the implementation of local, participatory and community-led conservation/ management approaches are not well-documented (Young et al., 2014). In addition, many of these practices have been confined to their local contexts and have not been scaled up. As a result, the Asia-Pacific Regional Assessment might not do full justice to some of the successful community-based natural resources management models and practices encountered throughout the region.
As already discussed in Section 1.3.1 the Asia-Pacific Assessment Report has adopted a social-ecological systems approach and a multi-stakeholder perspective in order to reflect the intricate linkages between biological and cultural diversity (Section 1.1.1-1.1.3). However due to time, funding and space constraints this was not entirely feasible. For example, while the assessment involved academics from several disciplines and countries across the region, practitioners from the private sector and civil society were under-represented.
Due to the lack of appropriate case studies, the assessment has also faced some limitations in stratifying and customizing policy options, policy mixes and institutional and governance frameworks for all subregional. Furthermore, while several nations have formed stronger trans-boundary partnerships and bilateral and multilateral initiatives (Section 1.4.2), there is limited peer-reviewed literature about their status and effectiveness as most of these regional initiatives are relatively recent. Finally, while there was a strong effort to include and synthesize knowledge from different sources (Section 1.3.4), most of the cited literature comes from peer-reviewed articles and reports written in English, which is the working language of the IPBES to target international audiences (Section 1.2). As not all chapters had representatives conversant in all major regional languages, we do acknowledge that this might have led to the underrepresentation of regional knowledge.