Methodological standards for nature conservation: casestudy landscape planning

Abstract

One of the main reasons for the insufficient realisation of nature conservation objectives, especially in competition with land use and development, is the lack of methodological standards. Existing standards are not widely accepted by the users, who often apply very different schemes and techniques for evaluation and monitoring, to work on the same kind of problems. In the complex social context of modern communities, that increasingly rely on standardised regulations, a loss of reliability and public acceptance of results can consequently occur. The demand for methodological standards in nature conservation increased rapidly during the past years, due to a more comprehensive overall concept including used or anthropogeneous ecosystems and landscapes and general globalisation trends, including nature conservation strategies and laws. In Europe the recent development within the European Union, especially the conservation concept of Natura 2000, requires harmonisation of planning, management and monitoring methods. Regardless of this, methodological standardisation is not yet a major topic in nature conservation sciences. Many disadvantages and obstacles of such standards are discussed, such as the fact that the complexity and individuality of nature forbids standardisation in general. However such arguments merge methodological and thematic standardisation. In a 3-year developmental study, the challenges and limits of standardisation in nature conservation were analysed, thematically focusing on conservation-related items of landscape planning in Germany. A board of experts, comprising outstanding conservationists from universities, research institutions and private enterprises produced draft papers for standardisation (called yellow prints). Further representative scientists and conservationists were involved in the stepwise definition of standards. Such drafts are now available for 5 methodological fields of landscape planning (fauna, vegetation, biotopes, evaluation schemes, landscape visions). They represent best practice in German landscape planning in these methodological fields. The developed procedures of standard-setting are applicable to other fields of nature conservation on regional and international levels as well.