Planning Principles and Steps

This is the first volume in the WCPA Good Practice Guidelines that is predominantly by rangers, for rangers. The editors worked with partners to collect good practices and stories from rangers worldwide, reflecting global experience and lessons learned. The text focuses on actions that rangers, and to a lesser extent managers, can do themselves. It does not address institutional changes that would need intervention at government level. Whilst the latter are often necessary, decisions are out of the hands of individual rangers. Nor is the guide the last word on the state of play, another global ranger survey is being carried out simultaneously with the production of these guidelines and we will continue to learn about ranger needs, strengths and challenges in the future.

The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems is the global standard for ecosystem risk assessment and a framework for monitoring the status of the world’s ecosystems. It  is part of the growing toolbox for assessing risks to biodiversity and aims to support  conservation, resource use and management decisions by identifying ecosystems  most at risk of biodiversity loss. By targeting a level of biological organisation above  species, the IUCN Red List of Ecosystems complements The IUCN Red List of  Threatened Species™ in supporting biodiversity conservation decision-making and action. The IUCN Red List of Ecosystems Categories and Criteria are designed to be  widely applicable across ecosystem types and geographical areas, transparent and scientifically rigorous, and easily understood by policy makers and the public.

Nature (covering the water, biodiversity, soil/land, and air/climate realms) continues to decline with significant negative impacts on society. Businesses need to understand their impacts and  dependencies on nature, manage their nature-related risks and embed the value of nature into their decision making to identify and implement opportunities that contribute towards the nature-positive global goal. Achieving nature-positive requires collective action across sectors, value chains and landscapes. Fundamentally, nature-positive represents a systemic and transformative shift rather than ‘re-shaping’ of current practices. Utilising prioritisation approaches can enable businesses to identify areas where they can have a material and meaningful  contribution from the outset as systemic and transformative change is adopted through the business.

La naturaleza (en los ámbitos del agua, la biodiversidad, la tierra/suelo y el aire/clima) sigue disminuyendo, con importantes repercusiones negativas para la sociedad. Las empresas deben  comprender su impacto y su dependencia respecto a la naturaleza, gestionar los riesgos relacionados con ella e integrar el valor de la naturaleza en su toma de decisiones para identificar y  aplicar oportunidades que contribuyan al objetivo global de una naturaleza positiva. Fundamentalmente, naturaleza positiva representa un cambio sistémico y transformador más que una «reformulación» de las prácticas actuales. El uso de enfoques de priorización puede permitir a las empresas identificar áreas en las que pueden tener una contribución material y significativa  desde el principio, a medida que se adopta el cambio sistémico y transformador a lo largo de la empresa.

As the World Heritage Convention celebrates its 50th anniversary in 2022, over 1100 sites around the world are recognized as World Heritage – places  that are so valuable to humanity that there conservation has been deemed our collective responsibility. Yet many of these exceptional places face  increasing pressure from diverse types of development projects within and around the sites. Assessing the impacts of such projects is essential to both prevent damage to World Heritage and identify sustainable options. This Guidance and toolkit explains the process for achieving these goals. Offering practical tips and tools including checklists and a glossary, it provides a framework for conducting impact assessments for cultural and natural heritage sites.