Why Plan?

This chapter considers the need for planning. It begins with an outline of the functions of a management plan. The core of the chapter deals with the reasons for the failure of so many management plans. Planning should be driven by objectives and not issues. Good planning will ensure continuity of management, which is essential, provided, of course, that it is appropriate management. Conservation management will always be influenced by people management and vice versa. It is important that plans are not over-compartmentalised and that the relationship of each section with all the others is recognised. There are three main areas where an inappropriate approach or attitude to planning results in failure:

● The adoption of an overly bureaucratic approach. This most often involves the imposition of impossible targets for plan production, focusing on the number of plans, regardless of their quality or functionality.

● Failure to comply with a plan is a major issue which often occurs when managers have no confidence in, or fundamentally disagree with, a plan that has been thrust upon them. Site managers should be the site planners. They should, whenever possible, prepare the documentation, or at least supervise its production, and they must be responsible for maintaining the planning process.

● Lack of corporate support, in particular the lack of support for planning by upper-level administrators and the possibility of last-minute changes being made by people who were not involved in the planning process and have no understanding of the compromises and tradeoffs that were considered and agreed.

Planning is the intellectual or ‘thinking’ component of the conservation management process. It is in itself a dynamic, iterative process. It is about recognising the things that are important and making decisions about what we want to achieve and what we must do. Planning is about sharing this process with others so that we can reach agreement; it is about communication; it is about learning. It is one of the most important conservation management activities.

Keywords continuity of management, functions of a plan, thought before action, why plan?