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Participation by local communities in the assessment and monitoring of efforts to implement global environmental conventions (GECs), such as Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) and the UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD), is a topic of growing interest worldwide. Previous implementation efforts were constrained by the lack of a methodological framework that integrates local knowledge and ecological methods. This study, conducted with assistance from Maasai herders in northern Tanzania, evaluated a socio-economic and ecological framework for integrating local communities into assessments of the GECs. To reach decisions related to CBD, herders used livestock grazing suitability (GS) and proxy indicators of biodiversity, while to reach decisions related to CCD herders used potential grazing capacity (PGC) related to the risk of degradation. We proposed criteria for indicator selection and developed step-wise research methods to assess performance of the indicators at spatial scales. The ecological and anthropogenic indicators were then analysed using a correlation matrix to evaluate management decisions. We showed that changes in ecological indicators influenced herder decisions. The anthropogenic indicators for potential were more sensitive to changes in soil degradation, range conditions and trends; while the decisions related to GS were more sensitive to the majority of the proxy indicators of biodiversity. The decisions reflected the potential responses to management, which had implications for CBD and CCD. Because decisions constitute a multiplicity of activities, the responses by local communities could be related to the potential role played by each indicator in the implementation of the convention at the local level. Copyright (c) 2007 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.