Communicating for Recovery (08/07/05)

Good morning everyone:

Since so many different stakeholders must be engaged in any recovery plan for a species or habitat, communication is an essential component of any such plan. Here's a publication from WWF Australia that would be a useful practical resource for any readers involved in this.

"Communicating for Recovery: A guide to developing a Recovery Plan Communications Strategy", has been developed from a recovery project by WWF Australia. It details eight steps to developing and implementing a communication strategy and the authors intend the guide to be used as a model that recovery teams can adapt to suit their own setting, to ensure that their communications with key stakeholders are relevant, strategic, cost-effective and accountable.

Communications play a significant role in inspiring, motivating and equipping stakeholders to protect biodiversity in the landscape, thereby exacting the necessary institutional and/ or cultural change. Such change demands a sustained and comprehensive effort. These guidelines provide a strategic framework to identify key stakeholders and audiences, and the precise messages to be shared with them. It also helps recovery planners select appropriate communications tools. Although it has been developed with threatened species recovery teams in mind, the steps and principles for effective communication can be applied equally to any on-site conservation project where the main threats have been identified.

This guide, Communicating for Recovery: A guide to developing a Recovery Plan Communications, V.J. Russell, K. Mercer and M. Watt, can be downloaded from WWF Australia's Web site as a PDF file (196KB) here (sincere apologies for this monstrous URL!): http://www.wwf.org.au/News_and_information/Publications/PDF/Program_resource/WWF_Comm_for_Recovery_Guide.pdf.

With best wishes, Sandra Hails, Ramsar Secretariat