Recovery plans are best prepared by a recovery team and should be outcome-oriented, practical, easily understood documents containing recovery actions that are achievable with a reasonable input of resources. The most important parts of a plan are the recovery objectives, criteria for success and failure, and recovery actions. Costings should be clear and accurate, and detailed records should be kept of how costs were developed. Lack of biological or other information on a species or community should not delay the writing or commencement of implementation of a recovery plan. Where lack of information prevents the production of a full recovery plan, or where urgency dictates that recovery actions can not await a full plan, an interim recovery plan should be prepared, especially for critically endangered and endangered taxa or communities. An interim recovery plan prescribes work over a three year period, including any research needed to more clearly define recovery actions. Pitfalls for recovery plan writers include too much detail in introductory sections, wasting time and space on minor details that have little or no relevance to outcomes, and delaying the commencement of recovery actions because of delays in preparation of the plan. Recovery plans require commitment of staff and resources for their implementation and should be officially adopted by relevant Ministers and conservation agencies. The only real test of recovery plans is whether they successfully guide the recovery of a taxon or ecological community, so they need to be regularly reviewed and flexible, and be amended as knowledge improves or conditions change. Four recovery plans written to guide threatened species and ecological community recovery in Western Australia are reviewed for their adequacy and ease of subsequent implementation.
