Now that you have completed Step 1 (Assess) of the Conservation Standards, you are ready to start planning your actions and monitoring. Often, even if a team does project planning, this is where they start. While some individuals might have a mental model of what is happening in their context, they have not explicitly shared and agreed upon that model with their team. You, however, should have a clear idea of your vision, what you ultimately want to conserve (your conservation targets), and the evidence for what is affecting their viability. With all of this information at hand, you are in a good position to set relevant goals and objectives and choose strategies that are well-suited for the situation.
In Step 2, you will first develop an action plan and then a monitoring plan. An action plan is a document that pulls together your project’s goals, strategies, their theories of change, objectives, and the specific activities under the strategies. Ideally, it will include the sources of evidence you used to set these goals and objectives and choose your strategies. An action plan could also include your situation model, a text description of the current situation within your scope and how you intend to affect it, your results chains, and any other background material that helps convey what your project will do and why. Your action plan is a core component of your overall strategic plan. Your action plan also forms the foundation for the other two components – your monitoring plan and operational plan (note that this guide does not cover the operational plan). Your monitoring plan includes information needs, indicators, methods, and responsibilities for collecting data.
The following sections of this guide will introduce you to the various components of an action plan and a monitoring plan and some tools that will help you develop them. Your action, monitoring, and operational plans, along with your work plan (described in Step 3 of the Conservation Standards), form your overall strategic plan (Figure 1).
