On 17 April, ten participants from Poland, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Spain and the Netherlands gathered in Amsterdam for the kick-off meeting of the Eurosite Management Planning Expert Group. Unfortunately, not all members could attend, although we hope to welcome them during future meetings. The group’s aim is to develop an online tool that guides and supports natural site managers in the development of a management plan for their natural sites. The tool will be based on the experience and knowledge of natural site managers across Europe and is expected to be presented at Eurosite’s Annual Meeting in England in May 2019.

During an exercise in pairs a number of gaps and needs were identified and/or briefly discussed. Questions that were raised were, for example, how to make management plans useful without being prescriptive to ensure the possibility for non-standardised large-scale implementation, and how to ensure management plans do not get outdated while being implemented.

Since we believe that the people who are best at identifying gaps and needs in current management planning guidance are the site managers who have to work with management plans on a daily basis, a questionnaire will be composed and disseminated within a short time. In case you already wish to share possible gaps and/or needs with us, please contact the Eurosite Secretariat.