Effective conservation is a dynamic endeavor that involves continually facing new challenges through adaptive management as more pressure is placed upon a fragile natural environment.  Increasingly, protected area planning forms part of regional land use planning and design and management of biological corridors, which are becoming more important as a tool in mitigation of and adaptation to climate change.  Staff and associates of the Center for Protected Area Management (CPAM) have been actively engaged in protected area planning for decades at every level – from operational, public use and master planning for small public and private and municipal reserves, to work on national protected area system and national and regional corridor planning and gap analyses for some of the most biologically diverse nations in the world.

CPAM staff have played a pioneering role in major international corridor initiatives such as the Mesoamerican Biological Corridor.  CPAM’s team of conservation specialists collectively have several hundred years of professional experience in over 30 countries on a wide range of training, project evaluation, and technical assistance projects.  Though our team has considerable experience in leading resource inventory and master and operational planning exercises for both national protected area system planning and at the individual protected area level, we believe strongly that such exercises should be led locally with strong involvement from initial planning to implementation by protected area staff and other stakeholders.  We provide facilitation services and input to help design planning projects for protected areas and protected areas systems, if there is clear and consistent local leadership and buy-in to any such process.

We have also participated in management effectiveness studies, both at the individual park and reserve level, and overall evaluations of the work of conservation agencies, and we are happy to assist in such efforts.  We constantly strive to be on the cutting edge of protected area good practice research. One such example is a recent collaborative project with the US National Park Service to examine global good practice in mitigation of sound and light pollution in parks.