About this Manual
This manual provides detailed guidance on assessing the situation and planning conservation projects and programs. It is based on the Conservation Measures Partnership’s Conservation Standards for the Practice of Conservation (Conservation Standards). Materials in this manual have been adapted from previous works produced by Foundations of Success and members of the Conservation Measures Partnership.
To provide feedback or comments, you can contact Foundations of Success at info@FOSonline.org. Visit our website at www.FOSonline.org to download the most recent version of this manual. Please cite this work as: Foundations of Success. 2021. Planning for Conservation: A How-To Guide. Foundations of Success, Bethesda, Maryland, USA.
Use of this Material
This work is licensed for use under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License. Under this Creative Commons license, you may take the manual and adapt or modify it as you see fit, provided you a) reference the original manual (but not in any way that suggests that FOS endorses this derived work), and b) issue the derived work under a similar Creative Commons license or equivalent. You can also formally contribute your modifications to the FOS which will consider incorporating them in a future official version of the manual. This process ensures that the manual constantly evolve through the input of a wide variety of practitioners, are adaptable to individual organizations’ needs, and yet provide a carefully managed global resource for conservation work.
Table of Contents
Step 1. Assess Table of Contents
- Define Purpose and Identify Project Team
- Define Scope and Vision
- Define Conservation Targets
- Define Viability Status
- Identify and Prioritize Direct Threats
- Develop a Situation Analysis and Model
Overview
This guide provides detailed information to help conservation teams assess the situation within which they are working and plan conservation projects and programs. It is based on the Conservation Measures Partnership’s Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation (Conservation Standards). These standards involve five steps designed to help teams improve the effectiveness of their conservation efforts (Figure Cycle):
To complement the Conservation Standards, Foundations of Success developed this guide to support steps 1 and 2. The guide provides step-by-step guidance, examples, resources, and exercises. Any practitioner or team can learn about the methods and tools to implement the Conservation Standards by using the guide.
The guide is designed to facilitate learning and positively impact your work. By using the guide and practicing the steps, you should become:
- Fluent in the language and literature of conservation planning, evidence-based conservation and adaptive management.
- Familiar with the basic steps of project management.
- Comfortable using several planning tools including, situation models and results chains, and software to facilitate and record outputs, such as Miradi and Miradi Share.
- Familiar with some additional skills sets that are critical in planning and implementing conservation projects, including facilitation, team coordination and external communication with partners.