Strategic Planning for Species Conservation: A Handbook - IUCN

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6. Vision and Goals
settings and in all range States” (IUCN/SSC in review).
This Vision was then used in conjunction with the previously completed range-wide Status
Review to derive the following Goals for Banteng (Bos javanicus), one of the nine Asian wild
cattle and buffalo species:
• Twenty-six ecologically functional, large populations, with 17
populations in dry forest mosaic habitat types and 9 in evergreen
forest habitat types; giving 4 populations in the Bornean subspecies/
ESU, 6 in the Javan subspecies/ESU, and 16 in the mainland
subspecies/ESU (please note that the 26 populations are identified in
the Strategy).
• Achieving this will require reintroductions to former range in Thailand
and Indonesia.
• All populations should co-exist with people and their domestic
animals, and be valued by people in range States and internationally
(IUCN/SSC in review).
Box 6.3 Formulating Goals from a Vision statement: an example from the Southeast Asian
Wild Cattle and Buffalo Conservation Strategy Workshop, June 2008
• Once the Vision had been agreed, the Goals could be developed. Since the Goals represent
the Vision defined in operational terms (see Section 6.2), a first step in developing the Goals
is to compare the species’ current status (as summarised in the Status Review) with the
status it would have under a future scenario in which the Vision had been achieved. One
way to do this is to break down the Vision into its component parts, and to then use some
sort of “scorecard” (e.g., the scorecard developed in association with the bison Vision
statement, which is available at http://intranet.iucn.org/webfiles/doc/SSC/SCS/
Ch6_bison_scorecard.pdf) to assess each remaining population’s contribution to achieving
the Vision. For example, as discussed above, the participants developing the conservation
strategy for wild cattle and buffaloes in Southeast Asia agreed the following Vision: “We
envision viable, ecologically functioning populations of wild cattle and buffalo that are
appreciated by humankind. These populations will represent the species’ genetic diversity, in
well-managed landscapes, replicated across their original ecological settings and in all range
States”.
• To develop the Goals, this Vision statement was broken down into its components; these
included population viability, ecological functionality, appreciation by humankind, etc. Each
component was then converted into a measure which could be applied to particular
populations; for example, for gaur a viable population was considered to be one numbering
≥500 animals, and an ecologically functional population was considered to be one which
coexisted with a complete (or almost complete) set of native competitors and predators.
These measures were then used to characterize each extant population according to
whether or not it currently contributed to each component of the Vision (e.g., Figure 6.1).
• Characterizing the extant populations in this way allowed participants to determine how the
conservation or management of each population would contribute to the Vision. For
example, some populations were already considered viable, ecologically functional, and
appreciated by humankind; maintaining such populations was considered important to
achieving the Vision, and the sites where this was needed were therefore specified in the
Goals (Table 2.1). Elsewhere, management was needed to achieve the population
characteristics defined in the Vision (e.g., population size needed to be increased); once
again, sites needing such management were specified in the Goals (Table 2.1).