TNC has recently updated its conservation approach. For the most up-to-date Conservation by Design 2.0 Guidance document, please visit the Conservation by Design 2.0 section. 

In the Plan and Adapt section of the Gateway you will find information on TNC’s core planning processes such as Conservation Action Planning and Ecoregional Assessment; new ideas and adaptations in planning; the conservation measures work that helps us achieve adaptive management; and the tools and data that can be used to develop and adapt strategies and actions.

Learn how our conservation approach is evolving

The Nature Conservancy strives for increasingly effective actions leading us to desired conservation results.  In order to achieve this, we must be strategic about actions we chose to take and closely monitor outcomes of those actions in order to optimize impact. Adaptive management is an iterative process that leads to stronger strategies and actions based on measured outcomes from prior iterations.  It is the concept that defines our approach to conservation.

Adaptive management is a framework that can and has been modified for many business purposes.  Two conservation-specific versions of this framework are:

• Conservation by Design is TNC’s long standing version of adaptive management for conservation, and
• The Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation which is a similar adaptation that represents a convergence of ideas from the multiple organizations involved in the Conservation Measures Partnership.

No matter what version of adaptive management you prefer, the key is to learn from what you do and use that information to improve the efficacy of your actions and reduce the uncertainty inherent in your decisions.   There is no one right way to do this.  What we share in this section are two of our established planning methodologies built on the principles of adaptive management:

• Ecoregional Assessment –  designed to establish biodiversity conservation goals and priorities within one or more ecoregions
• Conservation Action Planning – designed to develop strategies and guide actions for conservation priorities

Both of these methodologies require the establishment and tracking of conservation measures – those things we monitor, whether they be progress toward strategy effectiveness or the status of biodiversity — to tell us how we are doing and inform how we can improve.  Because this is a popular and rapidly evolving area of adaptive management for conservationist, we have created a whole section on measures, as well as, integrated this content into the descriptions of our planning methods.

In addition to our core methodologies you will find information on Business Planning at TNC that focuses on the implementation of conservation plans.  We have also assembled a section on Tools and Data.  While the Gateway does not host data or large applications, we do provide access to a collection of tools and data that help support the development, tracking and implementation of conservation strategies.​