The Dutch Experience – Don’t get lost!
Annie Wilgenhof, 25 september 2014
Natuurmonumenten, the major Dutch conservation NGO
• Manager of 355 sites
– 3,200 buildings, 105 022 ha
• Involvement of people
– 735,000 people who support our work, 146,000 newsletter readers, 281,000 website visitors per
month, 201,000 Facebook fans and Twitter followers and more than 50 million visits annually
• Spokesman for nature issues
– 10,899 volunteers, 150,000 children involved in our OERRR project, media attention for opinion
Dutch Nature
• Entrepeneur, earns money for nature
• The work is done by 700 employees and a lot of volunteers
Why does Natuurmonumenten needs CMSi?
• The current system is outdated
• Need better structured information about sitemanagement
• In the current practice of Natuurmonumenten we see that:
• Management plans remain much in the closet
• There are a lot of different approaches of management planning
• Management is often a result of interest and expertise of the administrator
• There is a gap between planned and effectively implemented management
• There is no information available about current management
• Management is not or is insufficiently evaluated
• This leads to arbitrary choices if cuts are made
• Planning and recording needs a very practical system
Implementation of CMSI (growth model)
• 2011: Year Plan 2012 - "Practised" in Excel with new structure
• 2012: Financial plan 2013 in CMSi - pilots, evaluation call for standardization,
initial meetings in all units, a lot of discussion about everything still choices
needed (like list plan units, monitoring, new manual management cycle, structure)
• 2013: Multi-annual plans in CMSi, 1st starter regions own plan + central roadmap
• 2014/2015: Promote use CMSi
management teams, project managers, awaiting production mainly the modules
Property & Agreements and Species & Habitat Monitoring
Some examples of practical use
• Heathland management - Buurserzand
• Water resources - Beningerslikken
Example Buurserzand
The heathland management has a
cycle of six years. It covers both
the dry and wet heath.
Actions:
Preparation of sand ridges, small
mowing, sod and liming and delete
storage in a six years cycle
(including exempt juniper).
Feature Wet Heaths
(Vochtige heide)
•
Monitoring Factor:
•
•
Monitoring Attributes
•
•
Drying out
Different types of survey
Management
•
Regular and one off
Tasks for practical planning
(optional choice)
Every year there are different
actions. In CMSi they are shown as
tasks. We can plan our staff,
expenditure and income on it.
We can also show these tasks on a map and use it as instruction to volunteer or contractor. It's easy to make simple
notes to print and distribute.
In one sheet
overview of the
heathland
management
• Project outcome
• Finance
There is a interface
with the financial
system in order to get
the actual payments on
time in CMSi.
This is the past
Before the maps were kept in a
folder, now they're in CMSi.
Sitemanager Buurserzand about CMSi
• This system can help us
tremendously
• New goals and activities are
incorporated and made ​transparent
• We feel the responsibility because
that's always been our strength
Example Beninger Slikken
A semi-natural landscape with
River and Marsh Landscape as key
management type. Management
measures are grazing and water
resources. Field thistles are only
mowed serving good
neighborliness towards agricultural
environment. Species Targeted
management does not take place
there.
Example Beninger Slikken
The management of water resources
focuses on creeks, dams and (for)
foreshores.
In the map alongside the creeks are
mapped and numbered. In CMS, each
creek is described along with what
should be done and what the
arrangements and exceptions are.
This will be discussed with the
employee.
Feature River and Wetland
•
Monitoring Factor:
•
Monitoring Attributes
•
•
Different types of survey
Management
•
Regular – Grazing
•
Regular - Water resources
•
One off - Purchase clay pits
Site manager Beningerslikken about CMSi
• management is transparent
• overview allows you to set priorities
• perfect tool for the site manager
• to discuss work plans with staff
• you make employees more
responsible
How is it experienced until now
• Better picture what needs to happen
• Too much flexibility and details are a trap, give a partly mandatory structure
• Starting with CMSi is a search
– organizational policy is not clear
– many opportunities and many fields in the system
– maintain their own method
• Stay close to the daily practice
• You can get lost, keep it small
• A good helpdesk and training is very important
Thank you. Questions?
[email protected]