“MPA Tip” is a recurring feature in MPA News that presents advice on planning and management gathered from various publications on protected areas. The purpose is two-fold: to provide useful guidance to practitioners, and to serve as a reminder of valuable literature in the MPA field.
MPA News adapted the following tip from Guidelines for Management Planning of Protected Areas (IUCN, 2003) by Lee Thomas and Julie Middleton, available online at http://app.iucn.org/dbtw-wpd/edocs/PAG-010.pdf.
Tip: The simpler the management plan, the easier it will be to develop and implement. It will take less time to prepare, will cost less, will be more flexible to change, will be easier to read and understand, and will require fewer staff with lower levels of training. Detail and complexity will evolve naturally as the plan is regularly updated and as increased support becomes available. Modest management planning efforts are also likely to be more cost-effective than elaborate ones, thus freeing funds and resources for other purposes.