Regardless of the approach selected, all successful INRMPs share several key elements:
There are clearly stated, mutually supportive conservation/management goals that drive the development of the plan. The goals communicate a compelling vision for the conservation and management of the planning area, park or landscape or resource.
There are clear statements of desired conditions generated from goals and include a description, metrics and measures of the resource. The desired conditions then drive the development of measurable program or project objectives. These objectives should translate the intention of the goals into measurable outcomes. The desired conditions, therefore, define what constitutes success. The objectives define what constitutes progress.
Both goals and statements of desired conditions call for strategies that can be implemented within a reasonable period of time and within a reasonable budget. Effective goals and desired conditions are sufficiently clear that they can guide decisions about priorities, sequencing, and required investments in the actions needed to achieve progress and ultimate success.
The plan explicitly identifies conservation strategies and objectives tied to each goal. Typical strategies are developed to abate the impacts of human activities or human caused changes on the landscape, or restoration or rehabilitation of areas incapable of natural recovery. Some strategies also identify actions to prevent threats to the focal conservation resources manifesting themselves.
Each objective has a related monitoring assessment. Well-written objectives point to measurable parameters and outcomes that can be used to monitor progress and document success. The monitoring assessment is set into place at the same time conservation actions are initiated.
The most useful plans explicitly address the challenges of implementing conservation strategies at the appropriate scale. Too often, plans identify conservation strategies with no consideration of the potential, or cost, of implementation. For example, while mechanical thinning of forests can be used to manage fuel loads, implementation of this practice across several hundred thousand acres would likely involve insurmountable obstacles of cost and practicality. Successful conservation plans recognize such challenges and propose activities that can be reasonably implemented.
Plans are treated as living documents from the onset and are consistently modified and updated. Such plans explicitly document all challenges encountered by the planning team including: (1) gaps in the knowledge of the team, (2) assumptions that were made during the planning process including assumptions about the biology or ecology of the focal ecological resources and (3) assumptions about biodiversity which is thought to be captured, using these surrogate focal ecological resources.
Living plans also identify additional information needs that could help improve the plan, change the priorities, or impact the conservation strategies.
Next Page: Conservation in practice
Author
Bob Unnasch, Ph.D.
Sound Science LLC
Why scale is important to conservation planning
Why scale is important to conservation planning