Abstract
Objectives should lie at the very heart of a management plan; they are the outcomes of management and the single most important component of any plan. An objective is the description of something that we want to achieve. Wildlife outcomes are habitats, communities or populations at a favourable status. Objectives must be quantified so that they can be monitored. This is quite a tall order: an objective is a multi-purpose statement that describes the required outcome of a feature (something that we want to achieve) using both plain and quantified scientific language. The solution is to prepare composite statements that combine a vision for the feature with quantified and measurable performance indicators. A number of performance indicators can be used to quantify the objective and provide the evidence that a feature is in a favourable condition or otherwise. Two different kinds of performance indicators are used to monitor an objective. Specified limits define the degree to which the value of a performance indicator is allowed to fluctuate without creating any cause for concern. In many ways, specified limits can be regarded as limits of confidence. When the values of all the performance indicators fall within the specified limits, we can be confident that the feature is at Favourable Conservation Status.
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Notes
- 1.
The Countryside Council for Wales was the successor in Wales of the Nature Conservancy Council.
- 2.
For Natura 2000 sites an objective must be written for each Natura feature.
- 3.
Although there is no widely accepted definition of long term, some authors have suggested what it might mean. For example, Sinclair et al. (2006), writing about ecosystems, conclude, ‘In most cases planning should be for 30–50 year periods or longer’.
- 4.
A paper, ‘Evidence of Effectiveness’ (Pullin 2002), provides a compelling case for evidence-based conservation.
- 5.
In this context, a feature can be a habitat, biotope, plant community or population of a species. However, the concept can also be applied to many other non-biological features, for example, geology, geomorphology, archaeology.
- 6.
A detailed account of attributes for UK grassland and all other habitats is available from JNCC (JNCC 2004).
- 7.
This and the remaining sections on limits are adapted from Alexander (2005).
- 8.
Reminder: monitoring is surveillance undertaken to ensure that formulated standards are being maintained.
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Alexander, M. (2013). Objectives and Performance Indicators for Biological Features. In: Management Planning for Nature Conservation. Springer, Dordrecht. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-94-007-5116-3_15
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