The evolution of management planning guidance

Practical solutions for sustainable management

The Eurosite network has long been known for its practical approach towards solving the problems, which face modern site managers. Early in the development of the network, management planning was recognised as an important skill and guidance was developed in the best Eurosite tradition - from the ground up. Eurosite is continuing to address priorities fundamental to the network and its values, to improve and continuously develop good practice standards for site management and to offer a framework for site based management planning that allows for adaptation to meet the challenges of managing natural areas in a changing climate.

Site Based Adaptive Management

The purpose of Site Based Adaptive Management is to enable Eurosite members and others to apply and continuously develop good management practice, whilst actively contributing to building the capacity and knowledge base of the network. Eurosite aims to improve knowledge sharing in the realm of adaptive site based management and to step-up cross fertilisation of ideas, experience and skills between network members and others. An interesting example of the Site Based Adaptive Management Approach is given in the “Recommended Strategic Plan For maintaining favorable conservation status of Natura 2000 areas in the Axios Delta in Greece (2009-2013)”. The document is available for downloading at the bottom of this page.

Eurosite Management Planning Guidance

The Eurosite Management Planning Toolkit 1 has served and continues to serve the network well: it is now used in many European countries and is translated into many European languages. The Toolkit is free and available for download at the base of this page. However, today's environment has changed considerably since the first management planning working group met to exchange the ideas and experience, which became the building blocks for an effective management plan. For example, the European Union Habitats Directive and the Biodiversity Convention have evolved in recent years and they recognise the importance of people who have an interest in or are affected by the management plan process.

With all these factors in mind, a new group was established with the task of revising the Toolkit so that European natural site managers would continue to benefit from a common approach to management planning. The building blocks of the plan are still there, but they have been improved in the light of experience and are now easier to fit together. The result of this work, which was tested in five central and eastern European countries, is published in the document Management Planning Guidance for Protected Areas. A Guide for Practitioners & Their Bosses. This guidance is also available for download at the base of this page.

CMS Management Planning Guidelines and Mapping / Software Tools

The CMS Consortium, one of Eurosite's members, is a group of conservation organisations whose aim is to raise standards in conservation and countryside management. The key ways through which this aim is achieved are by producing planning guidelines and software tools to make the whole process as simple as possible.

Their guide has recently been substantially revised. You can download the free CMS publication "A guide to management planning" on their website http://www.software4conservation.com

Download the CMS management planning guide from http://www.software4conservation.com/Data/Sites/1/manuals/CMSPlanningGui...

For more information about CSMi, please see the: CMSi For the Management of Biodiversity and Special Places Flyer, which you can download at the bottom of this page.

Checklist Natura 2000 management plans (NL)

Dutch Eurosite members Staatsbosbeheer, De12Landschappen en Natuurmonumenten use a checklist to check if a Natura 2000 site management plan from the authorities is sufficient. This checklist can be downloaded below.

Please note that we have removed annex 8, including reference lists of Natura 2000 habitat types and species by biogeographical region, from the Management Planning Toolkit as there is more recent advice available on the European Commission's website:
http://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/natura2000/sites_hab/biogeog_regi...