Strategic Planning for Species Conservation: A Handbook - IUCN

Strategic Planning for Species Conservation
not involve the full range of relevant stakeholders (Hatch et al. 2002), and they do not
incorporate important analytical tools such as population viability analysis in their decisionmaking
process (Morris et al. 2002).
Like SCSs, Recovery Plans are communication tools for stakeholders, plans for monitoring
of success, and fundraising documents. In some countries, such plans also carry legal
mandates for species conservation. In the US, for example, these legal mandates have a
restricted focus on species recognised as being endangered within the country (and,
indeed, are only developed for such species) and are often tightly prescriptive.
Interestingly, however, some of the recent shifts in the US Recovery Planning process –
such as a recent mandate that recovery teams should include many stakeholders who
together help develop the Plans – are quite similar to the guidance that we provide for
preparing SCSs 8 .
10.3 Area or landscape approaches to conservation planning with
an explicit species component
10.3.1 Conservation Action Planning
The Nature Conservancy (TNC) developed Conservation Action Planning (CAP) to help
conservation projects develop strategies, take action, and measure success over time in an
adaptive framework (TNC 2007). The CAP process is the most recent development in a
long series of project-level planning approaches prepared by TNC, including Site
Conservation Planning, Conservation Area Planning, and the 5-S Framework. CAP
includes mechanisms for defining the conservation team and project scope, selecting
conservation targets (i.e., the species, communities, or ecological systems chosen to
represent biodiversity in the project area), assessing the viability of the focal conservation
targets, identifying threats, developing strategies, including specific objectives, actions, and
measures of success. TNC has also developed a suite of decision support tools which are
available online (http://www.conservationgateway.org/cap).
CAP integrates with SCSs most closely at the level of objective setting (see Chapter 7) and
identifying actions (see Chapter 8), particularly when the species featured in the SCS are
selected as a focal conservation target 9 for an area. CAP also includes a qualitative viability
analysis and identification process for critical threats which can feed directly into the Status
Review (see Chapter 5).
10.3.2 Habitat Conservation Plans
In the United States, under the Endangered Species Act, a Habitat Conservation Plan
(HCP) may be developed to form partnerships between private individuals and the
government to “minimize or mitigate” reductions in populations of endangered species.
Plans vary widely in the area and number of species covered. The more than 200 approved
HCPs collectively cover millions of acres: approximately 25 exceed 10,000 acres, 25
exceed 100,000 acres, and 18 exceed 500,000 acres. HCPs must include an assessment
8 Examples of Recovery Plans can be accessed at http://www.fws.gov/endangered/RECOVERY/
index.html#plans (accessed 20 September 2008). Reviews of recovery planning can be found in
Gerber and Hatch 2002; Clark et al. 2002; and Crouse et al. 2002.
9 Conservation target here refers to the entity to be conserved.
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