Quick Links to Popular or New Content on Measures Mark Tercek speaks to the Measures Summit participants Measures Stories Podcasts TNC's Conservation Measures Business Plan and Business Plan Overview Presentation October 2009 Measures Summit workspace
Introduction to Conservation Measures
The Nature Conservancy is committed to measuring the results of our conservation work. New approaches are being developed across the organization, and important lessons are being learned. This section of the Conservation by Design Gateway focuses on a growing body of new methods and tools to support this effort. We begin by describing the world of conservation measures with two categories - Status Measures and Strategy Effectiveness Measures. Status measures address the general question: how is the biodiversity doing that we care about? More specifically, these measures evaluate the integrity and viability of biodiversity, threats, and conservation management status from local to global scales - including conservation projects, ecoregions and regions, major habitat types and realms. Strategy effectiveness measures address a very specific question: are our strategies and actions achieving their desired results? These desired results are stated as measurable objectives, and strategy effectiveness measures track our progress towards achieving them. Balancing the need to answer status and strategy effectiveness questions in a world of limited resources is a challenge. Managers and scientists must work together closely to identify the most important management questions, and the scientists and practitioners must identify the most appropriate measures and methods for answering these questions. Ultimately, the goal of any measures program is to answer the most important conservation questions with evidence rather than intuition. We hope that the new tools, methods, and case studies presented here will help practitioners achieve this goal, and contribute to collectively improving the practice of conservation. | 
Conservation by Design Gateway
