Open Standards

Note: This is a PRE-conference workshop happening on July 24th

Facilitated by James Goetz, Cornell University, Dept. of Natural Resources, Andrea Thomen, Grupo Jaragua, and Yolanda Leon, Grupo Jaragua. Emails: james.e.goetz@gmail.com, andrea.thomen@grupojaragua.org.do, yolanda.leon@grupojaragua.org.do

Purpose: The purpose of this one-day workshop is to introduce participants to Open Standards (OS) for the Practice of Conservation, to help them plan their conservation projects with a sound framework and good implementation.

Overview: OS is coherent set of best practices and principles for adaptive conservation planning and implementation that integrates project design, implementation, and monitoring and learning, to improve management decisions and conservation impact. The Open Standards propose an adaptive management approach that helps project teams systematically plan their projects, determine if their projects are on track, why they are on track or not, and what adjustments they need to make. Adaptive management frameworks, such as OS, help conservation practitioners to understand and communicate links among systems, disciplines and stakeholders for more efficient conservation interventions. (See http://cmp-openstandards.org for more information)

The course is especially relevant to the conference theme, Keeping Caribbean Birds aloft because adaptive, results-based conservation plans produced through the OS process explicitly: 1) seek active participation of all stakeholders, and 2) enhance the durability and resilience of the conservation plans and activities because at each step of the way it focuses on monitoring both implementation and impact, and then learning how to continually improve results.

The tools we will introduce are embodied in OS, a process that is quickly becoming the world-wide industry standard. This course will benefit any conservation practitioner who is responsible for planning, implementing, evaluating or reporting on projects large or small.

Objectives: The objective of this short course is to teach participants principles of effective conservation planning and communication and to give participants hands-on experience using a set of tools and techniques to implement these principles.

Session Structure: The workshop will run from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. on July 24th. Trainers will give brief presentations on each OS step covered, and then coach participants in 2-3 break-out groups through a series of intensive activities. In advance of the workshop (with guidance from trainers) 2-3 participants will develop the conservation cases from their own experience for the class to work on. For each draft plan, participants will develop the vision, mission, scope, conceptual model, results chains, strategies, activities, and indicators. Participants will share process results, challenges, and lessons learned with other groups in plenary sessions.