ABSTRACT
Land that has been conserved for natural resource protection requires careful and ongoing management. There are many factors that can degrade protected lands. These include changes in native plant or animal communities caused by pests, pathogens, or invasive species; poaching; illegal resource harvesting; disturbance to plants and animals from intensive human use; malicious destruction of resources; and ecological changes in nearby landscapes. Every protected property, regardless of size, must have an explicit conservation goal, a management plan, stewardship consistent with the management plan, monitoring to determine if management goals are being achieved, and adaptive adjustment of management plans if goals are not being met or new threats to the integrity of the protected land emerge.
