Evidence Base

Here, an evi­dence base refers to a body of knowl­edge about how socio- eco­log­i­cal sys­tems behave. The evi­dence base includes knowl­edge rang­ing from sci­en­tif­ic assess­ments to tra­di­tion­al knowl­edge and may exist in many forms includ­ing white papers, reports, peer reviewed lit­er­a­ture, pri­ma­ry data, inter­views, tra­di­tion­al oral accounts, gov­ern­ment records, and social media con­tent. At each stage of the Con­ser­va­tion by Design 2.0 process described below, teams will draw upon and con­tribute to an evi­dence base. While Con­ser­va­tion by Design has always includ­ed ‘cap­ture and share knowl­edge’ as a rel­e­vant step with­in a cyclic and iter­a­tive adap­tive man­age­ment approach, by inte­grat­ing evi­dence use and cap­tur­ing learn­ing into each step we expect to fos­ter an orga­ni­za­tion­al cul­ture that helps us learn and share knowl­edge more con­sis­tent­ly and effec­tive­ly. This Guid­ance doc­u­ment makes it clear that evi­dence is an essen­tial input to — and out­put of — each step.