Setting context begins with a process of outlining the social values of the stakeholders. These values reflect underlying societal and organizational values that will help account for the needs of each group and will facilitate priority setting. Social values are underlain by various belief systems that should be acknowledged and considered. They may include recognition of the values necessary for management including managing for complexity; land tenure; who will be the custodian of the resource; sustainability and resilience; gender, social and intergenerational equity; learning; community empowerment and adopting a proactive approach.

Technological values include the availability of tools, capacity for the use of these tools and the need to apply various tools to the situation. The context surrounding what tools are required for proper management, the realistic availability of the needed tools and the capacity for applying them should all be considered before a plan is drafted. This will help identify areas where capacity needs to be increased or tools need to be developed.

For many conservation projects, planners begin with ecological values and occasionally only consider these values. Although environmental values should be established, project teams should use caution that they are developed in tandem with social and technological values.

Environmental and ecological values should include lists of important habitats and species, including rare or threatened species and species and areas of high significance. Relevant governance should also be considered. Areas of high biodiversity with poor governance may have a different priority for management than areas of moderate biodiversity with exemplary governance. All this should be noted before beginning the project plan.

In some situations, economic values can be developed as part of the social values discussion. Often, social values are based on the economic importance of a resource or vice versa, causing these two values to be intertwined. Protecting resources can generate economic value, or the extraction and use of resources can be seen as the only way to generate economic value. This valuation could be based on an initial subjective opinion or a detailed resource economic and social study. There may also be economic value in non-use, such as when a wetland is deemed valuable as a tourist destination.

There may be a list of relevant legislative, policy frameworks and overlapping mandates which are relevant to the conservation of ecosystems. Many different organizations represent different stakeholder interests and the important policies or legal contexts of each of these groups should be recorded. Social supporting processes such as protected areas, plans, mandates, governance and societal values of each stakeholder group should be identified and recorded.

Developing a clear idea of what to accomplish is the first part of putting together a project plan. Doing this requires planners to ask the question: Where do you want to be? A number of future-building exercises can be used to help reduce conflict by encouraging different stakeholder groups to focus on common goals. Stating the desired future condition can often reduce some of the perceived conflicts as people realize that their goals are the same or similar.

There are four sub-steps to help set the desired condition.

Derive the Vision and Mission

Vision is normally the goal in twenty to fifty years, while the mission details how to achieve this vision.

In the process of generating the vision and mission, there may be emphasis on pre-existing visions or missions. Understanding the context can provide the first step in constructing a new vision and mission. Context and values will always interact with and inform the vision or mission, and so should be understood in order to refine the vision and mission. A vision or mission often needs to be refined after moving through the other steps of the adaptive management process and should be revisited in the learning and adapting phase of each project.

Setting the vision should always be done with the involvement of stakeholders and should reflect the broad aims and responsibilities for protected areas.

Specify Key Attributes

Between five and fifteen unique and essential attributes should be identified that characterize the intrinsic biophysical, cultural, social, and economic values of the protected area (as determined in the pre-step). Often, these attributes can help stakeholders find the essence of the system and can act as powerful filters while establishing objectives.

A long list of key attributes can be counterproductive and reduce focus, making this step less effective. Look closely, as there is often high correlation and integration among attributes. Condense them into a strong, focused subset of attributes that highlight what is truly important.

Prioritize Objectives

Ultimately, the vision statement specifies the fundamental long-term objective, but it must be broken down into the relevant multiple objectives. These objectives provide a means of achieving the vision and are derived from the key attributes. Various factors must be considered when prioritizing objectives: current condition, projections for the future (including climate change), social, political and cultural objectives and realistic expectations of what can be achieved over different time frames.

The hierarchy of objectives should be clear, creating an inverted pyramid with a few general objectives at the top and several specific objectives directly relating to the protected area and desired actions at the bottom. This will lead to a series of actions that can be tracked and recorded.

A few important considerations in the development of objectives are:

1. Objectives should strengthen desirable conditions and offset threats.
2. Objectives should be cross-linked wherever possible to help with integration.

Establish Targets and Thresholds

Based on the key attributes, measurable targets for ecological and socio-economic action or intervention should be identified. These targets will be plants, animals, ecosystems, important areas, economic drivers, income generating activities, etc. that are important to the people and environment of the area. Essentially, targets identify what the outcomes and intervention strategies should be acting upon.

Thresholds are a critical part of the discussion on targets. These thresholds define a level or amount of a controlling variable which drives a change that causes a system to follow a trajectory toward a different ecosystem state. It is important to define thresholds for each target and avoid them, because once one of these critical thresholds is exceeded, it may become very difficult to return to the original state. Essentially, thresholds set the upper and lower limits of a variable of interest. Thresholds apply and should be identified for both ecological and socio-economic systems.

Adaptive management requires determining how investments and actions are leading towards the set goals at many steps and scales throughout the lifespan of the project. Doing this requires having and implementing a monitoring or assessment plan that focuses on evaluating the assumptions in a project and tracking progress towards goals and objectives. Monitoring strategies outline the related sets of goals and performance indicators and how to monitor them in a collective manner.

Indicators also need to be sensitive to change. If the indicator doesn’t tell you anything until after the damage is done, it is of less use than if evaluating monitoring is built into the process.

Many projects overlook the need for education, outreach or training, but these strategies are important as they can help generate support and encourage further action in the future. A training strategy explains how to successfully implement relevant aspects of the project (e.g., trainings for field restoration workers on how to implement the shared strategies). Education and outreach strategies describe how to successfully raise awareness and convince stakeholders to support or adopt the shared objectives. Stakeholder engagement is a particularly important strategy as some projects may need to engage a variety of other stakeholders if the project has any chance of success.

Adaptive management is a continuous process that requires a regular cycle of assessment and reporting to inform strategic decision-making. As the assessment plan is implemented, the project managers should set a regular schedule for assessment and reporting.

Adaptive management is a continuous process that requires a regular cycle of planning that incorporates scientific advancements and lessons learned while implementing strategies or assessing projects. Each project should have a set schedule for when it will adapt.

The monitoring plan developing in step one should be implemented here in step 3. The results found should be critically evaluated to determine what lessons have been learned and what changes may need to be made to the project. This step is often informally referred to as “tracking progress.” This evaluation and learning can be framed in a clear series of questions for the other steps in the process. It is one of the most frequently skipped actions, and usually renders the management non-adaptive.

Questions may include:

1. Are the vision and mission being achieved?
2. Were objectives achieved or do they need to be adjusted?
3. Was monitoring adequate, cost effective and feasible?
4. Were predicted outcomes correct?
5. Were the outcomes acceptable?
6. Were the selected actions appropriate?

The results found when assessing and evaluating projects, i.e., the current progress of the project, should be compiled and reported to help various decision-makers make more informed decisions on how to allocate limited resources.

During this step, all aspects of the project should be updated to reflect the progress reported and the lessons learned. In general, adaptation involves reviewing the original project parameters, core assumptions, action plan, assessment plan, operational plan, work plan and budget and then updating or adapting these to reflect anything learned during the assessment and learn and share steps. Depending on what is learned during the assessment phase, it may also require other projects to update their plans and organizations and institutions to consider updating their policies.

Reporting and sharing changes to priorities and objectives will help inform stakeholders about relevant updates and will continue to foster a learning environment among practitioners.