The Conservation Management System Consortium is the long-term outcome of an initiative of the old UK Nature Conservancy Council to provide a basic planning and recording logic for its site managers that could be applied to all nature sites and codify all the necessary operations.

After the regional responsibilities of the NCC were devolved to country agencies, they all came together with the main conservation NGOs to develop the paper system as a computer database. 

The membership of the Consortium now represents all the UK Government conservation agencies, the major national and local NGOs, local authorities and national parks.  The vision and aims of the original NCC planning guides are now fulfilled by the Conservation Management System, a software package consisting of a relational database for producing management plans, scheduling projects, and reporting on outcomes of the planning process.

The Consortium has a commercial agreement with a software company, exeGeSiS, to market the CMS software, and provide technical support and training.  Any profits from the commercial operations are used by the Consortium to develop the software and its applications.

The Consortium has the following membership:-