Why Develop a Rosetta Stone?

For conservation practitioners to work together efficiently, they need to communicate effectively. Many conservation organizations have developed their own systems for planning, managing, and monitoring projects. In the process, they have also evolved their own language to describe these key concepts. Unfortunately, these various dialects have made it a challenge for practitioners to communicate both within and across institutions and disciplines, even though the concepts and processes may be similar.

The historic Rosetta Stone is a compact basalt slab originally carved in 196 BC and found in 1799 in the small Egyptian village of Rosette. It contains a passage of text honoring Pharaoh Ptolemaios V written in Egyptian hieroglyphs, everyday Egyptian script, and Greek. The discovery of the Rosetta Stone enabled scholars for the first time to decipher the phonetic values and thus the meanings of the hieroglyphs. The Rosetta Stone was thus the key to allowing modern people to learn about ancient Egyptian civilization.

The CMP Rosetta Stone presents side-by-side the various project management systems used by the conservation organizations in the Conservation Measures Partnership. It is our hope that this web site will enable practitioners to translate from one system to another and also to learn from one another so that they can refine and improve their systems over time.

How to Use This Site

Table 1 - Original Order Rosetta Stone presents the project management systems used by various organizations in their original order as developed by the organization itself. In this table, only the columns are meaningful. Wherever possible links to definitions of terms used in each step have been made, with the definitions showing the way each organization uses the term.

Table 2 - CMP Order Rosetta Stone presents the project management systems arranged so that equivalent terms are aligned on the Open Standards for the Practice of Conservation being developed by CMP. In this table, only rows are meaningful.

The Thesaurus presents the information from Table 2 in a comparative manner with a hierarchical outline following the CMP order. It also includes the definitions of different terms where available.

The Dictionary is an alphabetical listing of terms with the definitions as of the terms as they are used by the different groups. Where appropriate, we have attempted to cross-reference synonyms.

Some Important Caveats

In reading and using this Rosetta Stone please keep in mind the following caveats.

1. We have greatly abridged the presentation of the systems to facilitate comparison. Please consult the original sources to get full details.

2. In every case, we have presented simplified "linear" versions of what are in reality multidimensional processes. Most seasoned practitioners will combine these steps, jump across steps, and iterate back and forth between steps as they go through their project.

3. The systems described in this document include both project management "approaches" (a process broken down into a series of steps) and project management "frameworks" (a way to describe the relationship between different components of a project). Most systems include both approaches and frameworks within them, but some (e.g. IUCN-WCPA) have just frameworks.

4. Most of the groups have some form of prioritization that they go through prior to entering into their project management cycle. In this analysis, we have included this prioritization at a high level, but have not gone into any of the specific methodologies used to conduct this prioritization work.

5. Most of the systems described herein are still under development and are liable to change over time. Please consult each organization to get the latest version of their material.

The Conservation Measures Partnership

The Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP) is a joint venture of international conservation NGOs committed to improving the practice of conservation. To achieve this, the CMP is developing and promoting common standards for planning, implementing, and measuring conservation impact. CMP Core Members include: African Wildlife Foundation, Conservation International, The Nature Conservancy, Wildlife Conservation Society, and WWF. Collaborating Members include: Cambridge Conservation Forum, Enterprise Works Worldwide, Foundations of Success, and IUCN-World Comission on Protected Areas.

For More Information - contact the Conservation Measures Partnership at CMPinfo@ConservationMeasures.org or visit www.ConservationMeasures.org.