Develop Goals and Objectives
To this point, we have focused on learning about the land. By following the process and tasks in the previous steps, you should have some detailed understanding of the land including the ecological health of the component ecosystems. What and where are th
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Develop Goals and Objectives Without goals, and plans to reach them, you are like a ship that has set sail without a destination. Fitzhugh Dodson
To this point, we have focused on learning about the land. By following the process and tasks in the previous steps, you should have some detailed understanding of the land including the ecological health of the component ecosystems. What and where are the stressors, how have they acted to change the ecological health of the ecosystems, and what kind of restoration work is needed to move these systems back to a healthier condition? The depth of your understanding of the land should have been increased through review of reference areas, larger landscape-scale historic events, and refined through consideration of the agents of change. Building on what you have learned about your property from earlier tasks, you now need to set goals and objectives, and begin planning. In this step, we cover the following components of planning: Goals and objectives indicate your intentions and expectations, including endpoints of the remedial restoration program, conditions that can be confirmed by monitoring. Framing steps include leadership, governance, and decision processes. These are
critical if you are doing the planning with a group, whether your family, a volunteer organization, or employees. Preliminary budgeting is necessary because budgets drive planning in more instances than not, and your goals and objectives need to be within your means.
Task 14. Develop Restoration Goals and Objectives The goals and measurable objectives for a restoration plan initially should focus on the stressors, both those still affecting the ecosystems and those that in the past led to a loss of ecological integrity. Stressors will likely vary among the different ecological units or cover types you have identified in your project, especially if your project is large or complex. Thus, you may have as many sets of goals and objectives as you have ecosystems in the landscape. A simple chart (see data form 4.1, appendix 1) can help you align goals and objectives with different ecosystems. This is particularly useful for discussions with others involved in the project.
S.I. Apfelbaum and A. Haney, The Restoring Ecological Health to Your Land Workbook, The Science and Practice of Ecological Restoration, DOI 10.5822/978-1-61091-049-1_4, © 2012 Steven I. Apfelbaum and Alan Haney
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the restoring ecological health to your land workbook
You will link stressors spatially to the maps you have completed in steps 2 and 3. The stressors and locations also should be tied to specific tasks you think necessary to achieve the measurable objectives. In a later step, we will add additional columns to the table to assign schedules, responsible parties, costs, and monitoring activities to be able to evaluate progress toward objectives. While the formulation of goals and objectives may be difficult initially, it should not be a stumbling point in moving forward with a restoration plan. The worksheet will help organ
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