Story shared by Nick Salafsky, Foundations of Success.
Despite growing interest in evidence-based conservation, practitioners lack clear guidance on what evidence is or how to realistically apply it to their work. A Conservation Measures Partnership working group brought together leading experts to explicitly incorporate principles of evidence-based conservation into the Open Standards.
We reviewed evidence-based practice in medicine, education, and other fields to develop a working definition and typology of evidence in conservation. We then developed guidance for realistically using evidence in day-to-day conservation practice. Finally, we developed a road map (based on theory of change) for the conservation community to better generate, disseminate, and use evidence across the discipline (see results chain below). A recent paper, “Defining and Using Evidence in Conservation Practice,” describes our work in more detail.
These principles are being incorporated into Version 4.0 of the Open Standards (scheduled for launch in 2019) and have already been built into the latest version of Miradi Software. Going forward, our working group will use this road map to better promote and enable the use of evidence in conservation. We welcome participation and feedback from coaches!
For more information or to join our ongoing effort, please contact Nick Salafsky.
Please share the article using hashtags #ConservationEvidence and #CMPopenstandards and using the paper’s DOI: 10.1111/csp2.27
Results chain showing how the conservation community can better generate, disseminate, and use evidence. Chart from “Defining and Using Evidence in Conservation Practice,” published in Conservation Science & Practice, DOI: 10.1111/csp2.27
