Effective conservation planning requires learning and adaptation

© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.org O the past two decades, an increasingly systematic approach to planning, decision making, and management has become “best practice” in conservation (Margules and Pressey 2000). The field of “systematic conservation planning” is concerned with the creation and implementation of spatially explicit conservation actions, ranging from strict protected areas to temporary off-reserve management activities using clearly specified objectives (Margules and Pressey 2000). A substantial set of theoretical and practical guidelines for maintaining biodiversity and ecosystem function have been developed (Margules and Sarkar 2007), as well as several operational models that use these guidelines to provide direction for practitioners when undertaking systematic conservation (eg Margules and Pressey 2000; Knight et al. 2006; Figure 1). However, uncertainty hinders our ability to predict the responses of social and ecological systems to planned conservation actions (Gunderson and Holling 2002). Uncertainty can be reduced through learning, as it gives people the opportunity to adapt to changing dimensions and knowledge of social–ecological systems (Fazey et al. 2007). Of particular relevance to conservation planning are processes of social learning (Knight et al. 2006; Fazey et al. 2007). Social learning can be defined as a process of iterative reflection designed to improve knowledge that supports collective action, and which occurs through partnerships where experiences and ideas are shared with others. It is an ongoing process of “learning by doing” (Keen et al. 2005). Reflecting on the learning process, so as to encourage new learning, is an especially important activity, but one that is rarely used effectively for conservation planning initiatives. Social learning processes aim to increase the human capacity to solve problems and adapt to changing conditions (Holling et al. 1978), and thus are essential components of operational models in establishing a collective capacity for adaptive management (Salafsky et al. 2002). Adapting conservation actions in response to new knowledge, termed “adaptive management” (Holling 1978), is now seen as a critical part of effective conservation practice (Parma 1998). Adaptive management principles have been applied broadly in other fields related to conservation, including protected area management REVIEWS REVIEWS REVIEWS