Strategic Planning for Species Conservation: A Handbook - IUCN

Strategic Planning for Species Conservation
The completion of a Red List assessment or updated species assessment (Baillie et al.
2004; http://www.iucnredlist.org) may be an opportune time to initiate the development of a
SCS for those species that are listed as threatened. Red List assessments describe the
broad status of the species, identify primary threats, and assess these data against defined
categories of threat (IUCN 2001). Red List assessments are just estimations of extinction
risk; they do not set out to be SCSs or action plans. They therefore do not contain the level
of detail on status and threats to individual populations needed to plan conservation action,
nor do they specify the actions needed to improve the species’ status. Red List
assessments can provide initial baseline data that would be expanded in the process of
developing a SCS, and they can also justify the need for attention to the species or group of
species. If a Red List assessment does not already exist for a given species, or is
considered out-of-date, or if the species has been categorised as “Data Deficient”, then the
detailed Status Review conducted within a SCS process will allow for a Red List (re)
assessment.
Other broad assessments of species in need of conservation action (such as many of the
prior IUCN/SSC Action Plans and related conservation assessments that reviewed all the
species within the remit of IUCN/SSC Specialist Groups) can also provide the impetus for a
more detailed and genuinely action-oriented SCS. Similarly, the SSC Biodiversity
Assessments (e.g., the Global Amphibian Assessment, IUCN, CI, and NatureServe 2006)
may provide the first “port of call” regarding which species should be prioritized for SCSs.
A Specialist Group should not automatically be expected to take the lead in developing full
SCSs for every species within their responsibility. A Group would decide to lead the
development of a SCS for a species only if it has a functioning and representative
membership that agrees to work together on the task with a broad array of other
stakeholders, including both governmental and non-governmental entities.
We recognise that other conservation groups and management authorities will also be
developing species conservation strategies, and we encourage such groups to use the
approach and tools described in this document in their own strategic planning efforts. We
also encourage them to make use of the expertise available within the IUCN/SSC Specialist
Groups and to engage with the appropriate Specialist Group(s) to develop comprehensive
SCSs that provide coordinated plans for working in collaboration towards species
conservation.
3.2 Taxonomic scope: single, few, or many species?
In the past, IUCN/SSC Specialist Groups often developed an Action Plan that aimed to
provide the best current information and conservation recommendations for the entire
taxonomic group under their mandate (see Chapter 1). These compendia were and remain
valuable, but they often were primarily surveys of species’ status. In contrast, the approach
that we describe in this Handbook includes a detailed Status Review, a Vision of what it
would mean to save each species, specific Goals, Objectives to be achieved, and detailed
Actions that should be adequate to achieve the defined measures of success for each
species. This more complete concept of a conservation strategy for a species requires a
more focused effort, especially as it involves many stakeholders with interests in the
conservation of the species (see Chapter 4). Thus, a Specialist Group would not normally
develop a single SCS for all those species within its mandate, unless that covered relatively
few species. Instead, they would more commonly develop a SCS for one or a few species
each time that the need and opportunity arose.
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