Zoo conservation plan

Abstract

For over 300 years there has been an erratically increasing controversy over development and conservation in the English-speaking world. Since the 1970s battles between developers and conservationists have been particularly bitter and often unnecessary. This guide proposes a less confrontational concept. Conservation and development are not mutually exclusive objectives; they should, and can, be part of a single planning process. Conservation projects need provision for development just as surely as competent development requires an adequate approach to determining conservation policy. Developments do not take place in a vacuum but at an existing place, in existing surroundings. This seemingly obvious fact has to be under- stood and accepted before decisions on the relationship of conservation and development can be made. The precise balance is important. What is kept gives the inhabitants a sense of continuity, of identity and of stability. It provides a very nec- essary reassurance. What is newly-created may ensure survival, give vitality or perform a function which could not otherwise be met. Today’s creation may become tomorrow’s heritage; it may also be the bomb that blows a neighbourhood apart. The processes involved in conservation and development are as much social, political and economic as they are technical. Tension between those bent upon retaining the old and those building the new is not necessarily bad. It is a useful testing process of all four aspects and can establish a society’s priorities—provided that the basic information nec- essary for decision-making has been made available to all parties and that a method of making those decisions has been agreed. This guide is therefore about gathering, analysing and assessing infor- mation that bears upon policy decisions and on the processes of mak- ing those decisions. It offers a common ground for debate, a method and a common language to help resolve differences and achieve a bal- ance between the old and the new. The result of these processes is a conservation plan.