Every natural system is subjected to various disturbances. For our planning purposes, however, only the destruction,
degradation, or impairment of conservation targets resulting directly or indirectly from human causes should be
considered a stress.
In the Stress worksheet for Conservation Targets, list up to eight stresses
for each Target.
You do not need to include every conceivable stress, but only those which are current or likely to become a
problem in the next ten years. Try to be as precise as possible. See examples,
but also consider other stresses that may be relevant and significant.
The relative seriousness of a stress is a function of the following two factors:
Severity of damage - what level of damage to the conservation target may be expected under current circumstances and will it result it total destruction, moderate degradation, or slight impairment. Scope of damage - is the stress pervasive throughout the target occurrences or localized.
Based on your knowledge or best judgment, rank the severity and scope of each stress according to the following scale
of significance: "Very High", "High" "Medium", or "Low" (See guidelines for these terms).
We have a macro in an Excel Spreadsheet which will combine the rankings for an over-all stress rating. Ultimately,
we want our conservation strategies to reduce or eliminate those stresses that have high severity combined with wide scope.