Joseph Liana N, Maloney Richard F, Possingham Hugh P
The Ecology Centre, School of Integrative Biology, University of Queensland, St Lucia 4072, Australia.
Conserv Biol. 2009 Apr;23(2):328-38. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01124.x. Epub 2008 Dec 11.
Conservation funds are grossly inadequate to address the plight of threatened species. Government and conservation organizations faced with the task of conserving threatened species desperately need simple strategies for allocating limited resources. The academic literature dedicated to systematic priority setting usually recommends ranking species on several criteria, including level of endangerment and metrics of species value such as evolutionary distinctiveness, ecological importance, and social significance. These approaches ignore 2 crucial factors: the cost of management and the likelihood that the management will succeed. These oversights will result in misallocation of scarce conservation resources and possibly unnecessary losses. We devised a project prioritization protocol (PPP) to optimize resource allocation among New Zealand's threatened-species projects, where costs, benefits (including species values), and the likelihood of management success were considered simultaneously. We compared the number of species managed and the expected benefits gained with 5 prioritization criteria: PPP with weightings based on species value; PPP with species weighted equally; management costs; species value; and threat status. We found that the rational use of cost and success information substantially increased the number of species managed, and prioritizing management projects according to species value or threat status in isolation was inefficient and resulted in fewer species managed. In addition, we found a clear trade-off between funding management of a greater number of the most cost-efficient and least risky projects and funding fewer projects to manage the species of higher value. Specifically, 11 of 32 species projects could be funded if projects were weighted by species value compared with 16 projects if projects were not weighted. This highlights the value of a transparent decision-making process, which enables a careful consideration of trade-offs. The use of PPP can substantially improve conservation outcomes for threatened species by increasing efficiency and ensuring transparency of management decisions.
保护资金严重不足，无法应对濒危物种的困境。面临保护濒危物种任务的政府和保护组织迫切需要简单的策略来分配有限的资源。致力于系统确定优先事项的学术文献通常建议根据几个标准对物种进行排名，包括濒危程度以及物种价值指标，如进化独特性、生态重要性和社会意义。这些方法忽略了两个关键因素：管理成本和管理成功的可能性。这些疏忽将导致稀缺保护资源的分配不当，并可能造成不必要的损失。我们设计了一个项目优先排序协议（PPP），以优化新西兰濒危物种项目之间的资源分配，该协议同时考虑了成本、效益（包括物种价值）和管理成功的可能性。我们用5种优先排序标准比较了管理的物种数量和预期获得的效益：基于物种价值加权的PPP；物种权重相等的PPP；管理成本；物种价值；以及威胁状态。我们发现，合理利用成本和成功信息大幅增加了管理的物种数量，单独根据物种价值或威胁状态对管理项目进行优先排序效率低下，管理的物种数量较少。此外，我们发现，在资助更多成本效益最高、风险最小的项目的管理和资助较少项目以管理价值更高的物种之间存在明显的权衡。具体而言，如果按物种价值对项目进行加权，32个物种项目中的11个可以得到资助，而如果不对项目进行加权，则有16个项目可以得到资助。这凸显了透明决策过程的价值，它能够仔细权衡利弊。使用PPP可以通过提高效率和确保管理决策透明度，大幅改善濒危物种的保护成果。
