High Conservation Value (HCV) Screening: Guidance For Identifying And Prioritising Action For HCVs In Jurisdictional And Landscape Settings

High Conservation Value (HCV) screening is a desktop exercise that uses the six HCV definitions to characterise the environmental and social aspects of a landscape or jurisdiction. Screening considers: the likelihood that HCVs are present, identifies threats to those HCVs and indicates which values are most urgent to attend to with follow-up discussions and actions.

This guidance was first developed in 2018-2019 and published in April 2019 – a result of building on HCV Common Guidance and gathering input from discussions with practitioners. In 2020 the guidance was updated to incorporate learning and experience from HCVRN coordinated screenings and inputs from other practitioners who have been conducting screenings. HCV screening teams are the primary audience for the document, but it should also be informative for stakeholders involved in screening processes and for those involved in the wider project or initiative in which a screening is being conducted (e.g. government technical staff, NGOs, donors and investors).