Create a lasting conservation impact with the Conservation Standards
Imagine if you could create lasting impact for conservation. What would your conservation legacy look like?
How would it feel to know you were making a real difference for a cause you care about… whether that be community conservation, rewilding, marine plastic pollution, climate change – or your own personal conservation passion!?
The Conservation Standards help conservation teams create lasting impact. Credit: Felix Cybulla.
A key to success within conservation is the ability to design and implement projects to better protect species, habitats and sites.
So, what’s the key to lasting impact?
The Conservation Standards | World-Class Conservation Projects
The Conservation Standards are a widely adopted set of principles and best practices that combine common concepts, approaches, and terminology for conservation project design, management, monitoring and evaluation.
They have been developed by some of the leading conservation organizations of the world. They are currently stewarded by the Conservation Measures Partnership, a partnership including the World Wildlife Fund, Wildlife Conservation Society, The Nature Conservancy, Traffic, Durrell, US Fisheries and Wildlife Services and many more.
The Conservation Standards have become widely recognised as best practices within the industry.
What’s inside the Conservation Standards?
There are five key steps that make up the Conservation Standards cycle.
Step 1 | Assess
This step in the Conservation Standards cycle involves specifying the basic parameters for your project and assessing your overall context.
This includes:
- Stakeholder & Team, Scope & Vision
- Situation Analysis & Conceptual Models
- Conservation Targets
- Target Viability Analysis
- Direct Threats
- Threat Rating
- Opportunities
- Contributing Factors
The outcome of this step is to make sense of your project’s context, including identifying targets, threats, drivers, opportunities, and key stakeholders.
Step 2 | Plan
This step in the Conservation Standards cycle involves planning your project’s goals, strategies, and objectives and assumptions.
This includes:
- Theory of Change
- Goals
- Strategies
- Objectives and Indicators
- Monitoring Plans
Step 3 | Implement
In many respects, this is one of the most important step in the entire conservation process. It is where you put all of the planning efforts you conducted in the previous steps into action. This step involves developing and implementing specific work plans while ensuring sufficient resources, capacity, and partners.
This step involves:
- Work Plan
- Team Communication & alignment
- Budget
- Implement
The outcome of this step is to learn how to develop and implement work plans while ensuring sufficient resources, capacity, and partners.
Step 4 | Analyze & Adapt
This step of the Conservation Standards involves managing your data as they come in and creating a culture within your organisation or work to regularly analyse your data to convert them into useful information and knowledge.
This module will cover:
- Prepare Data
- Analyse Results
- Adapt Plans
The aim of this step is to understand the importance of analysing your project’s results, core assumptions, key uncertainties, and relevant operational and financial data, and then adapting your work plan as necessary.
Step 5 | Share
This final step in the Conservation Standards cycle involves sharing lessons and formal products with key internal and external audiences. It also involves giving and receiving feedback and promoting a learning culture.
This step includes:
- Document Learning
- Share Learning
- Foster Learning
The aim of this step is to understand the importance of sharing lessons and formal products with key internal and external audiences.
Are you curious to learn more about the Conservation Standards? Join our free webinar Conservation Project Management & Design on Tuesday 18th October 2022 to learn more about the Conservation Standards and how they can help you create better conservation impact in your career. We’ll be speaking with certified Conservation Standards Coach, Facilitator and Coach Trainer, Felix Cybulla. Register here.
Would you like to gain key skills in managing and designing conservation projects using the Conservation Standards? Check out our newest training programme Conservation Project Management & Design, taught by Certified Conservation Standards Coach, Facilitator and Coach Trainer Felix Cybulla. Learn more here.