Developing a comprehensive land-sea conservation planning framework
The Coast Range Association is involved in a land-sea conservation planning project that will develop the first integrated framework for adjacent terrestrial and marine environments and contribute to the further development of a globally-applicable consensus planning model (see the Bottrill-Pressey document below). Our work will unfold within a multi-organization network involving the Conservation Planning Institute and researchers at the ARC Centre for Excellence in Coral Reef Studies at James Cook University.
Effective conservation planning is hampered by the inadequate integration of land and sea ecosystems, a lack of coherence among major planning strategies, and the need to further advance implementation oriented planning processes. The land-sea planning project will synthesize information across terrestrial, freshwater, and marine ecosystems and their related human dimensions to provide decision makers with a fully developed planning environment to assess conservation policy tradeoffs.
Pressey, et el 2008
The above diagram is the land-sea planning project's basic scheme for developing a comprehensive planning framework. The diagram was developed by Bob Pressey and others at James Cook University in Australia with input from the Conservation Planning Institute team.
The Coast Range Association is honored to be part of an international support network assisting the development of new approaches to conservation planning. Our particular work is understandably focused on the issue of land-sea integration. We work directly with the Corvallis-based Conservation Planning Institute and researchers at James Cook University.
For information on the planning project and related work by the Coast Range Association write Chuck Willer at chuckw@coastrange.org
A global synthesis of comprehensive conservation planning strategies:
Madeleine Bottrill and Bob Pressey are working on a comprehensive synthesis of planning approaches as part of a IUCN conservation planning working group. Their work is jointly sponsored by the Species Survival Commission and the World Congress on Protected Areas.
Below is a draft of the synthesis document that will be published in extended, final form in late 2008.
Here's the link to the document:
Designs for Nature: Regional Conservation Planning, Implementation and Management. Madeleine Bottrill and Robert L. Pressey
Executive summary
Designs for Nature:
Regional Conservation Planning and Management.
Conservation planning and a diversity of approaches
Conservation planning is the process of locating, designing and managing conservation areas
to promote the persistence of biodiversity, one of the main goals of the Convention of
Biological Diversity. The term “conservation areas” covers protected areas in IUCN
categories I-IV but also includes other areas managed in some way or being restored for the
persistence of natural values.
Conservation resources are almost always insufficient to immediately apply all the necessary
conservation actions to all identified areas. Biodiversity is being reduced, degraded and lost
each day. So planners often have to decide which areas should be managed for
conservation first. If we spend limited conservation resources without planning, the chances
are very high that we will invest in the wrong places, at the wrong times, and apply the wrong
actions. If we plan, then we will maximise the chances of achieving our objectives within the
limits of our resources.
National government agencies, international organisations, institutions and research groups
have become committed to specific conservation planning approaches, applying them at a
variety of spatial scales and in different environments. Meanwhile, there is increasing
uncertainty in the conservation science community and amongst governments and donors
about how to choose between apparently competing approaches, many of which are being
assertively promoted as the tools needed to save biodiversity. This uncertainty creates
difficulties for potential users of planning tools, impedes cooperation between organisations
and scientists, constrains the effectiveness of conservation planning by failing to identify
complementarities between approaches, and limits the efficiency of funding.
Distilling good practice from around the world
Recognising the need to integrate the many different approaches and provide policymakers,
scientists and conservation practitioners with practical guidelines on conservation planning,
two IUCN commissions: the Species Survival Commission (SSC) and the World Commission
on Protected Areas (WCPA) convened a joint initiative on the integration of planning
approaches at the regional scale. By regional scale, we refer to planning for geographical
domains such as ecoregions, landscapes, corridors, countries, provinces and local
government areas. The main purpose of this initiative was to develop a comprehensive guide
to conservation planning that would describe the many tasks and decisions involved in the
process of designing, implementing and managing conservation areas. The guide will
become a joint SSC-WCPA publication in the WCPA Best Practice Guidelines series.
The main purpose of the guide to conservation planning is to comprehensively describe
and explain the process of systematic conservation planning:
To bring together, for the first time, ideas and techniques on conservation planning
from diverse sources and case studies throughout the world;
To show how systematic approaches can address many of the major conservation
challenges facing planners and managers; and
To guide conservation planners and managers through the entire planning process
with a series of tasks and decisions, many of them optional and all of which can be
approached in different ways, depending on available funds, time, information and
skills.
Development and structure of the guide to conservation planning
Building on earlier frameworks by Margules & Pressey 20001 and Cowling & Pressey 20012 ,
this guide describes 11 broad stages of planning (e.g., Stage 4: Setting conservation goals),
each of which is unpacked into steps to describe specific tasks or decisions. The guide is
generic in two ways. First, it is not a single approach by any one organisation. Second, the
main stages are all necessary and applicable to any region and to terrestrial, freshwater and
marine realms. To develop the guide, existing approaches were integrated together as well
as lessons, methods, tools and insights from peer-reviewed articles, grey literature and case
studies.
The 11 stages of the guide are broad enough that planners will have to work on every stage.
The SSC-WCPA guide comprehensively describes: the reasons for including each stage in
the planning process; the necessary steps for completing the stage; which steps are essential
or optional; and how each stage links to other stages in the process. The steps within each
stage (e.g. Step 7.6 Setting targets for natural processes) are introduced and described in
terms of their rationale, key issues associated with undertaking them or adopting particular
methods, challenges, and links to other steps.
Ways of using the guide to conservation planning
The guide can be used in several ways. An NGO, for example, might extend its established
approach to planning to incorporate additional steps or use new methods for analysing data.
A government agency might use the guide to develop or update a National Biodiversity
Strategy and Action Plan (NBSAP). Among groups with limited existing capacity, the guide
will serve to identify the financial resources and skills necessary to embark on a process of
conservation planning. In every case, the guide is sufficiently flexible that it can be adapted to
a wide variety of biological, social, economic and political circumstances.
Insights
Greater understanding of whole process of planning – the most comprehensive
description of the planning process available
Emphasis on good practice in the application of tools and engagement with
stakeholders
Assistance to individuals, conservation groups and organisations with varying
experience and capacity
Highlights parts of the planning process that have not received much attention,
including implementation of conservation actions, evaluation of actions in relation to
goals, efficient use of conservation resources, involvement of stakeholders and
awareness of diverse conservation values.
Note from authors
This monograph is an abridged draft version of an upcoming joint SSC-WCPA publication,
“Designs for Nature: Regional conservation planning, implementation and management” in
the WCPA Best Practice Protected Areas Series. Publication of the full report is anticipated in
early 2009. A PDF will be available for free download from the following URL:
http://www.iucn.org/themes/wcpa/pubs/guidelines.htm
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank the IUCN Species Survival Commission and IUCN World
Commission of Protected Areas for funding and continued support for this initiative. In
particular, we would like to thank Holly Dublin, chair – SSC and Nik Loupoukhine, chair –
WCPA. We would also like to acknowledge funding from the following organisations: The
Applied Environmental Decision Analysis Centre (AEDA), Conservation International, The
Nature Conservancy, Parcs Canada, World Wildlife Fund-UK and the Wildlife Conservation
Society. We thank a global network of technical experts and practitioners for critical review
and insightful dialogue which has greatly improved this report.
Questions or comments, please contact us.
Madeleine Bottrill
The Applied Environmental Decision Analysis Centre
The Ecology Centre
The University of Queensland ,
St Lucia, Brisbane QLD AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 7 3365 2709
E-mail: mbottrill@uq.edu.au
Prof. Bob Pressey
Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies
James Cook University
Townsville QLD 4811 AUSTRALIA
Tel (direct): +61 7 4781 6194
Tel (Centre): + 61 7 4781 4000
Fax: +61 7 4781 6722
Email: bob.pressey@jcu.edu.au
1 Margules, C. R., and R. L. Pressey. 2000. Systematic conservation planning. Nature 405:243-253.
2 Cowling, R. M., and R. L. Pressey. 2003. Introduction to systematic conservation planning in the
Cape Floristic Region. Biological Conservation 112:1-13.