Guidance on improving the practicability of management plans

As diverse as the users of a management plan are, so diverse are the requirements and expectations they have of a management plan: Area managers want orientation for their work plan, experts want details on the value of the area and its protected goods as well as statements on the development of the stock, stakeholders in agriculture and forestry want to better understand the background to area protection so that they can better convey it in their consultations. Readability, comprehensibility and practicality of the management plan for a wide range of users and readers is therefore of central importance.

A well-designed guide to the preparation of management plans can ensure the comprehensibility of the document to a wide range of users, regulate completeness and consistency of management plans, and thus increase the practicality of management plans.

We are working on a guideline for the preparation of management plans, which should improve the practicability of future management plans for Natura 2000 sites in Styria. For this purpose, the guideline addresses the formal level, for example by specifying the structure and arrangement of the management plan or by identifying text areas that can be formulated uniformly in all management plans. On the content level, it elaborates important key points that must be considered in general with regard to the use of language so that the individual target groups can be reached as well as possible. In addition, for the most important content-related building blocks of a management plan, such as site description or conservation objectives and measures, points of reference are formulated that are intended to additionally increase the comprehensibility, completeness and traceability of the management plan.