Strategic Planning for Species Conservation: A Handbook - IUCN

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8. Actions
might therefore be recommended as an Action. Where the process of developing
Objectives and Objective Targets highlights important information needs, the recommended
Actions should specify means of addressing these needs.
In some cases, there may be considerable uncertainty about the environmental, social or
political conditions under which species conservation will be attempted. For example, some
parts of the world are prone to political instability; elsewhere, the effects of climate change
on future habitat suitability may be uncertain. It may be helpful, in developing SCSs, to
explicitly recognise such uncertainty where it exists, and to consider the potential of
particular Actions to achieve their Targets under different plausible scenarios. In some
cases it may be possible to develop contingency plans to deal with alternative future
scenarios.
8.3 How to identify which Actions to recommend?
In a well-designed SCS, the Objectives (see Chapter 7) should be carefully formulated to
address the key threats and constraints identified in the Status Review (see Chapter 5) and
wider problem analysis (see Chapter 7). The Actions identified as necessary to reach each
Objective should therefore mitigate the threats or constraints faced by the species of
concern. Although the structure of the SCS process should ensure that this is the case, in
preparing such a strategy it is still worth checking that all of the Actions address the threats
and constraints, and that, in turn, all of the key threats and constraints are addressed by the
Actions. For example, if a species’ persistence were threatened by widespread habitat
destruction, taking measures to secure or restore habitat would be appropriate Actions; in
contrast, captive breeding might not be appropriate.
Some constraints on successful conservation may not feasibly be mitigated by those
responsible for developing or implementing the SCS (e.g., climate change, human
population growth, or large infrastructure projects). In such cases, Actions will often need to
focus on proximate threats. However, the need to address ultimate threats and/or
constraints still needs to be clearly stated; it may also be appropriate to include Actions
such as lobbying or sensitizing those organizations which do have power to influence such
factors.
In deciding which Actions to recommend, it may be helpful to consider multiple Actions to
ameliorate the same threat or constraint. Many threats will be multi-faceted and several
Actions will be required to reduce their impact. For example, reducing illegal logging might
require a combination of increased patrol effort by forest rangers, environmental education
to explain the ecosystem services provided by intact forest, and capacity development to
allow initiation of forest-based tourism enterprises at the local scale, while legal action,
advocacy, or consumer-boycott initiatives might be needed at the national or international
scale. Box 8.1 provides some real-world examples of multiple approaches to particular
threats.
Once possible management approaches have been identified, but before any Actions are
definitively recommended in the SCS, their likely effectiveness should be evaluated and
documented. This is critically important: ineffective Actions waste money and other
resources without contributing to the conservation of the species concerned. Indeed, there
are sufficient examples of well-intentioned Actions which could reasonably have been
expected to improve species’ conservation status, but in fact made matters worse (for the
same or another species), to warrant routine evaluation of conservation measures,
particularly for critically endangered species (see Table 8.3). The need to conduct such