New Scientific Article on a Reporting Standard for Systematic Conservation Planning

Identifying where, what, and when to prioritise in terms of conservation efforts is central to global and European ambitions, such as the EU Biodiversity Strategy and the Nature Restoration Regulation.

Systematic Conservation Planning (SCP) is a key methodological approach that integrates both quantitative and qualitative data to identify conservation and restoration priorities robustly. Within the NaturaConnect project, this approach is widely applied to define priorities at both pan-European and case study levels (learn more here).

However, the outcomes of SCP-based prioritisation can depend on a range of conceptual and analytical choices—many of which are rarely compared or clearly communicated. To address this, researchers from the NaturaConnect project present a new reporting protocol aimed at recording these decisions.

The Overview and Design Protocol for Systematic Conservation Planning (ODPSCP) allows users to comprehensively specify the criteria on which a priority map is based. From general properties to design choices and specific parameters, the protocol describes the key steps undertaken during the planning process. This enables decision-makers and scientists alike to understand which factors were considered—and which were not—facilitating comparison, transparency, and the scrutiny of methods and assumptions.

The protocol was developed through collaboration between European and international experts in SCP and has just been published in the journal Conservation Science & Practice.

A figure from Jung et al. (2025) illustrates the broad sections and elements that the new reporting protocol captures.

The ODPSCP is available via an R Shiny web interface, hosted at IIASA and mirrored elsewhere. It can generate both machine-readable and Word-compatible outputs. The code is openly available and will continue to be updated as SCP methods evolve.

Reference

Jung, M., Adams, V. M., Alagador, D., Álvarez‐Romero, J. G., Araujo, M. B., Arponen, A., … & Visconti, P. (2024). An interoperable and standardized protocol for reporting systematic conservation planning projects. Conservation Science and Practice, e70097. https://conbio.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/csp2.70097