BTCV Handbooks Online

Book:	Local Action
Chapter:	Planning Projects
Section:	Setting your aims
Metadata:	Details	Buy this book

Clarifying the aims of your project has all sorts of advantages. It helps you to avoid ad hoc activities that you may then have to change later. It will give the group continuity when key members move on. You should base your action plan on your aims when it comes to looking for money and organising publicity. If you have clarified aims you have something to review progress against. An overall action plan for the group may cover more than the management plan for your site; a management plan tends to cover the practical actions you will take.

If your group has been running for some time you probably already have a management plan for your site or sites. If you don't, or if you are a new group about to take on the management of a site, then you could write one for yourselves. A management plan is a working document that tells you what practical work is needed to make your site sustainable.

You could be looking after a Local Nature Reserve that has a number of specific aims in terms of managing the habitat on the site, or running a community garden that aims to grow vegetables with children from the local junior school; a management plan is relevant to both. It should state clearly what you want to achieve, why you want to achieve that, and how you are going to do this on an annual cycle. It will probably have long and short term aims and a revision date to remind you that you need to review things now and again.

Whatever sort of site you are working on, the management plan is something you and your members can and should produce yourselves. You may need help to do this, and may be working in partnership with the organisation that owns the site, but producing a management plan yourselves, with the help of as many volunteers as want to get involved, is the best way to generate ownership of your project and to ensure you have plenty of volunteers to help you implement it.

Producing a management plan is a great way to encourage your members to learn about your site. There are a number of 'standard' formats for management plans, and guidance on how to write one. Many plans, written by consultants, might be written in very formal language, but formal language is not essential. If the purpose of writing a plan is to ensure that the right conservation work happens, the key skill you need is clarity. The document may be backed up with species lists and extracts from the Local Biodiversity Action Plan but your management plan itself should be concise and easy for everyone to understand. There are some questions you need to ask yourselves to write a plan for any site. If you do this as a group you will find out which questions you can answer yourselves, and which you need help with. You can then identify the people who are going to do it, think about who might be able to give you help, and you can start learning.

The sorts of questions you are likely to have to ask are:

What is the history of this site?
What habitats are present now?
What wildlife uses the site?
Who uses the site?
What wildlife and habitats are most important to keep or improve?
When and how do you want people to use the site?
Are there conflicts between how people and wildlife want to use the site, and how can you best resolve these?
Are there conflicts between how different groups of people want to use the site, and how can you best resolve these?

Local and regional plans written by other organisations may help you answer some of these questions. Local and National Biodiversity Action Plans will tell you how important your site is for wildlife.

For example, water voles are a species that has become very rare and are a priority for action on every site where they still live, so it will be more important to manage the stream banks in your site for the things watervoles like, grass, nettles, rushes, than for the aesthetics appreciated by local residents. You could manage potential conflict by undertaking an education programme so people understand why you have chosen to let the riverbanks remain overgrown rather than mowing them all year. You could put a willow screen in so people could watch the river and appreciate the wildlife.

As you can see from this example, your group might need some help from experts to make some decisions but only you can know what local people want and make the project happen, so you need to be part of the management planning process. Some of the people you might want to ask for help are listed in "Effective partnerships". Once you have a management plan you can use it to help you produce your Action Plan for the year, and put together a programme of work.

If you want to start practical work before you have completed your management plan try to chose projects that are non-controversial rather than anything that might destroy wildlife habitat before you have been able to identify the most important areas, or that you might have to redo after later changes. Things like clean-ups, or clearance and maintenance of existing paths are a good place to start.

If you work out the main purpose of a project you can ensure that your resources are focused. Other aspects of the work may benefit, but make sure the main purpose is achieved. For instance, if you set out to improve a footpath and end up spending too much time doing a lot of educational work with passers-by, you may feel you've done good work, but unless the necessary improvements have been made, then the project did not really fulfil its aims.