A protected area (PA) financial strategy should aim to covering all costs of the implementation of the PA management plan in order to achieve the conservation objectives.
Step 1. Know the starting conditions in the PA, e.g. conservation objectives, financial gaps and business opportunities. This information can be found in the PA Management Plan and its financial plan.
PA management plans describe activities, needs and goals protected and conserved area managers are working to achieve. Financial plans provide an overview of a site’s current financial state projections of future income, long term financial goals and needs and steps to achieve the conservation objectives established in the PA management plan.
Step 2. Determine financial gaps. Identify the financial requirements for implementing the management plan or a strategic component, e.g. fire management (how much does fire management costs? Including personnel, equipment, infrastructure and supplies). Consider basic or optimum scenarios to achieve conservations goals. Map all available resources from public and private funding and, finally, calculate the gap by determining the difference between available and necessary resources for each scenario.
- Up-to-date PA management and financial plans available for identifying financial needs and gaps.
- Institutional capacities and tools on finance and management to develop basic and optimum scenarios and determining financial gaps.
- Having a site business plan can be helpful for initiating a conservation finance project, as they help to identify economic goals for the site and strategies for achieving them.
One of the biggest challenges in developing effective conservation finance projects is mindset. Many conservation practitioners have been habituated to depend on government funds, donations and international cooperation. There is a strong sense that protected areas are a public resource and should be publicly funded. However, in this reality where public funds are insufficient, understanding that protected areas can and should work to generate their own incomes is essential to enabling implementation of financial mechanisms to unlock other sources of funding. Changing mindsets requires time and creates significant challenges, until there is a critical mass of well-informed and engaged protected area managers.