Adaptations of the CS
What are the Conservation Standards?
The Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation (Conservation Standards or CS) are a widely adopted set of principles and practices that draw on the collective experience of adaptive managers and robust strategic planning approaches from various industries.
The CS provide a clear and systematic approach to planning, managing, monitoring and learning to help conservation projects achieve lasting impact. They are open source and common property, freely available to organisations worldwide to be shared, used and adapted to suit the planning context.
Why adaptations?
Lands and waters of Indigenous People and Local Communities (IPLCs) harbour as much as 80% [FW1] of the world’s biodiversity, making global conservation goals unattainable without the full inclusion of IPLCs. Adaptations of the CS have emerged to ensure that culture, local communities and indigenous knowledge are central to our conservation practice.
Those adaptations use locally relevant language, culturally appropriate facilitation approaches and tools tailored to community needs, focussing on participation, community engagement and building local capacities.
Adaptations of the CS recognise that a plan is more likely to succeed when the people implementing the plan are empowered through the process and believe in the plan. Adaptations of the CS provide an approach and set of tools to bring together community knowledge and conventional science to provide a platform for indigenous-led conservation.
Inclusive and equitable: Places Indigenous knowledge and local community values as the drivers of the conservation planning process.
Indigenous-led: Flexible to adapt to local decision making ensuring IPLCs are in control for lasting impact.
Accessible: Uses language that is clear, locally relevant, and easy to understand while exploring complex issues at many scales.
Empowering: Process to empower local decision-making and place-based solutions providing identity and ownership.
Transparent and action-oriented: Provides a clear connection between what IPLCs want to achieve and on-ground actions, translating into multi-year work- and monitoring plans.
