Why Create a Wildlife Conservation Plan? To implement conservation projects that protect what a community or region values requires some type of plan. To be effective, such a plan should be based on a Natural Resource Inventory of the features and resources in a geographic area of interest. By compiling information on the identification, location and attributes of natural features and resources, community or regional groups can develop a plan to protect these features and resources through voluntary and/or regulatory means. A conservation plan is a vision for the future ecological health of an area and provides an action plan to protect these features over the long term. Follow the step-by-step guide below to create a conservation plan for wildlife. This will help you to:

• Identify and describe the most important wildlife habitats in a geographic area
• Promote conservation of prioritized critical wildlife habitats
• Guide municipal or private voluntary land conservation
• Document wildlife conservation priorities and recommended policies in a municipal master plan
• Suggest regulatory protection for prioritized wildlife habitats

The Natural Resources Inventory forms the basis for a Conservation Plan. Use the information in the Wildlife Section of your Natural Resources Inventory (NRI) for the following steps:

• Refer to the Habitats Land Cover Map map showing habitat areas you prioritized (as shown in the Bradford example) and refine these areas. You can incorporate other natural resources (e.g. water resources) into those priority areas, depending on your goals for conservation planning.
• Review NH Wildlife Action Plan Highest Ranked Habitat Map to identify habitats ranked as of highest importance statewide and regionally
• Use the Wildlife Action Plan Critical Habitats and Possible Associated Species table developed for your NRI to cross-reference species of greatest conservation concern and critical habitats

• Read the profiles for each species in Appendix A of the NH Wildlife Action Plan and in the Wildlife Profiles

• Review protected and public lands in your community using the Habitats Land Cover and Highest Ranked Habitat maps, both of which show the GRANIT conservation lands data layer. Use the GRANITView Mapper's Land Conservation data layer or other sources to identify conservation lands by protection level, primary protection type, agency level and management status and GAP status.

• Use the Habitats Land Cover and Highest Ranked Habitat maps to identify critical habitat areas and highest ranked habitats in conservation connection areas.
• Use your community’s tax parcels map to locate areas of larger parcels that could be conserved to establish conservation connections.

• Use the guidelines provided in Preparing a Conservation Plan
• Involve as much public communication and input as possible in writing the plan
• Work with your local or regional land trust when developing the plan - you may want to incorporate local or regional conservation prioirities they have identified.
• Be aware of and review regional conservation plans that include your town. Examples of some regional conservation plans in New Hampshire include:
  • Land Conservation Plan for New Hampshire's Coastal Watersheds
  • Quabbin to Cardigan Land Conservation Initiative
  • Land Trust conservation plans, e.g. Bear Paw Regional Greenways Conservation Plan
  • Watershed Plans, e.g. Newfound Lakes Region Association Master Plan

• Refer to Conducting Public Outreach for Wildlife for ideas and suggestions for a publicity plan.
• Use a variety of means - print, meetings, web, email, posters, cable access, radio - to get the word out about the conservation plan and begin putting it into action.

Learn More About Conservation Planning for Wildlife....

Conservation Planning Resources - links to publications, examples of NH conservation plans

Community Stories - including examples of town conservation plans