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Elevate and summarize the biggest conservation challenges and linked social or economic challenges to take forward.

Dis­cuss with­in the con­ser­va­tion team, and exter­nal­ly with addi­tion­al stake­hold­ers as rel­e­vant, to nar­row in on a few (we rec­om­mend 3–5) key chal­lenges that will be tak­en for­ward into the next stage of plan­ning. 

Key chal­lenges are those that incor­po­rate mul­ti­ple con­ser­va­tion pri­ma­ry inter­ests, their con­nect­ed social or eco­nom­ic pri­ma­ry inter­ests and their most pow­er­ful dri­vers of change in the cur­rent sys­tem. The lan­guage used to describe key chal­lenges may or may not include ref­er­ence to spe­cif­ic pri­ma­ry inter­ests that were iden­ti­fied to start the process. Key chal­lenges are best stat­ed as the con­nect­ed set of cur­rent con­di­tions that cre­ate cur­rent chal­lenges for a major­i­ty of pri­ma­ry inter­ests. Not all pri­ma­ry inter­ests will be cap­tured in key chal­lenges. The sit­u­a­tion analy­sis is a focus­ing exer­cise that allows the team to take for­ward the most crit­i­cal chal­lenges in the sys­tem, not all of them.

At this point, do not elim­i­nate sig­nif­i­cant chal­lenges for which no strate­gies are appar­ent, as strat­e­gy devel­op­ment occurs in a sub­se­quent step.

 There may be social or eco­nom­ic pri­ma­ry inter­ests in the sys­tem that are not strong­ly con­nect­ed to con­ser­va­tion pri­ma­ry inter­ests. These should not be ele­vat­ed as key con­ser­va­tion chal­lenges, as they are not defen­si­bly linked to con­ser­va­tion issues.

 

Exam­ples of Key Challenges