HCP Overview *Note: This presentation can be shortened by focussing - PDF document

HCP Overview *Note: This presentation can be shortened by focussing on the following pages: 4, 6, 11, 13, 16, 18, 27, 50 1

Open Standards / Healthy Country Overview Version 3.0 was published in April 2013 and was a joint effort between many individuals and organizations.

Open Standards / Healthy Country Overview This presentation “Introduction to the Open Standards and Healthy Country Planning” covers on 5 main topics: 1. It outlines the concept of adaptive management 2. It explains what the Open Standards are 3. It explores how Healthy Country Planning evolved out of the Open Standards and matured 4. It gives an overview of the steps of the HCP / OS process 5. It highlights some of the resources that are available to support the implementation of the OS / HCP

Open Standards Overview A longer List of what is planning: We plan to improve results ‐ “Studies have consistently shown that developing a clear vision, planning and setting clear goals and strategies greatly improves organizational performance and success.” It allows the community to develop a shared vision, mission, goals and activities It helps clarify roles and responsibilities It enables the development of clear management strategies that can be monitored and measured to determine whether they are working or not (eg abating a threat or improving target) It helps communities solve problems. It helps build stronger teams and helps communities to get organized. It helps projects to attract resources.

February 2015 Adaptive Management is the integration of project or program planning, management, and monitoring to provide a framework for: •Testing assumptions •Learning •Adapting Adaptive management allows teams to change quickly when not going in the right direction rather than waiting until the end of a project to determine whether it worked or not. There are different definitions of adaptive management out there. This is the Conservation Measures Partnership’s definition.

February 2015 The basic project management/adaptive management cycle includes these 4 steps (some groups add a “share” step after adapt).

February 2015 Point is – there are a lot of different cycles out there, but if you really look closely at them, they are conceptually very similar. Once you learn one cycle, you probably know 90% of what you would see in any other cycle. It doesn ’ t matter which cycle you use – what ’ s important is that you follow a systematic process

Open Standards / Healthy Country Overview Now that we have a better understanding of the concept of adaptive management, let’s look at what the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation are.

February 2015 The Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP) was formed in 2002 by representatives of the organizations on the top line of this slide: Foundations of Success (FOS), The Nature Conservancy (TNC), World Wildlife Fund (WWF), African Wildlife Foundation (AWF), Wildlife Conservation Society (WCS) and Conservation International (CI). CMP has grown since then and each year there are new organizational members – nowadays 28 organisations are members of the Conservation Measures Partnership.

February 2015 The CMP published Version 3.0 in April 2013 and the publication was a joint effort between of many individuals and organizations.

February 2015 But why are they called Standards? Just as doctors have standard terms to describe illnesses, conservation practitioners need standard terms to describe threats to biodiversity and conservation strategies. If we use different terms to describe the threats we are addressing and the strategies we are implementing, then it will be harder for people who are working on the same threats / implementing the same strategies to find one another and learn from one another. For example, if I call the threat cattle ranching and you call it grazing, then it will be harder for us to find another

February 2015 To meet this need, CMP and IUCN have worked together to develop a Taxonomy of Conservation Actions and a Taxonomy of Direct Threats to Biodiversity. In using this taxonomy of conservation actions, conservation teams use their own name for a strategy (e.g., translocation of endangered species) but then use the taxonomy to CLASSIFY their strategy as an example of Species Management. HCP is consistent with the Open Standards for Conservation Practice which has been adopted by 28 major NGO’s and some government agencies to harmonize our individual conservation approaches. So that we can learn and share across the greater conservation community with more agility. This group of parties calls themselves the Conservation Measures Partnership.

Open Standards / Healthy Country Overview The Open Standards give us: • clear insight into where resources are required, and why • clear logic behind what we want to do, and what we expect to achieve by doing it • a look at items in an organisation’s budget and follow it back to strategies & expected outcomes • clear priorities, within projects and across the organisation • Ability to share Information across the organisation • everyone can see how projects are tracking • field staff can easily let people know what they are doing; they now have a direct line right through to Directors • Greater efficiency • hard to quantify, but as an example, our central budget effort went from a 10 week process to 3 weeks • Easier and more efficient reporting

Open Standards / Healthy Country Overview Now lets look at how Healthy Country Planning developed from the Open Standards

Open Standards / Healthy Country Overview Conservation Action Planning was originally developed in the 1990’s The Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation are a product of the collaborative work of the Conservation Measures Partnership. As a starting point, CMP members used the results of the Measuring Conservation Impact (MCI) Initiative, a 2002 study that reviewed experiences in seven fields – conservation, public health, family planning, international development, social services, education, and business – to determine common concepts of and approaches to good project design, management, and monitoring. The findings of MCI were compiled into a series of principles for project cycle management/adaptive management. Building on these results, individual CMP member organizations contributed their experience in project implementation to refine the Open Standards and focus them more specifically on biodiversity conservation. Version 1.0 was released in 2004, with subsequent updates in 2007 and 2013. In 2009/10 CAP started being adapted to become later on Healthy Country Planning to suit an Indigenous community context and worldview.

HCP Overview The history can be broken down into 5 major phases so far: 1) The first HCP, the Uunguu HCP 2010 ‐ 2020 lead to the initial adaptations of CAP 2) With funding from TNC Indigenous conservation projects participated in a series of Open Standards workshops to learn from the Uunguu experience and to apply those learnings to their local community context. 3) Projects that participated in the training received coaching support to work through Step 1 and 2 of the HCP cycle and finalise their Plans of Management – their Healthy Country Plans 4) A group of Indigenous representatives worked with Stuart Cowell on refining the HCP process to simplify language and support materials for Indigenous conservation projects. 5) Since then Healthy Country Planning is establishing itself widely – first across the North of Australia, then Southbound. Other countries in the world are using the HCP approach – like Canada’s First Nations and other projects in Asia. 16

Open Standards / Healthy Country Overview When working with (Indigenous) communities, connection to country and planning on country for country is important. The decision making and endorsement in the HCP process is adopted to the local decision making structure / cultural requirements. Healthy Country Planning accepts that other commitments – often cultural commitments – mean that planning timelines work for local community participants. The language in HCP has been simplified and standardized to be accessible and concepts adopted to suit a holistic Indigenous world ‐ view that incorporates cultural and socio ‐ economic dimension into the planning process.

HCP Overview Major steps in every HCP process are: 1. Work out how we will plan collaboratively (timing, language etc) 2. Pick a group of people to make sure the process runs well – a Working Group 3. Hold Community meetings / on ‐ country meetings to get everyone’s input 4. Working Group helps move through the steps 5. Check other work done before 6. Make a plan and show it to community 7. Put the plan into action 8. Get back together and check if the plan is working 18

HCP Overview Wunambal Gaambera Traditional Owners held several on ‐ country meetings: sometimes the communities split into man and women groups to discuss steps of the process. It is important to note that on ‐ country meetings often require a lot of logistics as the locations are very remote – the on country meetings are held in the far North ‐ West of Australia, in the Kimberley region. 19