School of Earth, Environmental and Biological Sciences, Queensland University of Technology, 2 George Street, Brisbane, QLD 4001, Australia.
Quantitative & Applied Ecology Group, School of Biosciences, The University of Melbourne, Parkville, VIC 3010, Australia.
Conserv Biol. 2020 Aug;34(4):843-853. doi: 10.1111/cobi.13490. Epub 2020 May 14.
Conservation strategies aimed at reducing threats to biodiversity can have significant implications for multiple sectors in a socioeconomic system, but these cobenefits are often poorly understood. For example, many of the threats to native species also impede agricultural production, yet agriculture is typically perceived as in competition with conservation objectives. Although a comprehensive, multiobjective decision analysis is usually beyond the scope and capacity of conservation decision makers, failing to incorporate key socioeconomic costs and benefits into conservation decision-making processes can result in missed opportunities for diversifying outcomes and creating cost-sharing multisectoral partnerships. We devised a straightforward and readily interpretable approach to incorporate cobenefits into a threat-management prioritization approach. We used it to analyze the agricultural cobenefits of implementing 9 invasive animal management strategies designed to ensure the persistence of 148 threatened species across Australia's Lake Eyre Basin over 50 years. A structured elicitation process with 24 participants (scientists, land managers, agriculturalists, and other stakeholders) was used to collect information on each strategy, including costs, technical and social feasibility, benefits to native threatened species, and cobenefits to agricultural production systems. The costs of targeted invasive animal management to save threatened species across the basin (AU$33 million/year) outweighed the overall benefits to the agricultural industry (estimated AU$226 million/year). The return on investment for these management strategies varied substantially when agricultural cobenefits were considered alongside threatened species benefits and showed synergies and challenges. Our approach demonstrates the value of incorporating cobenefits of conservation actions into cost-effectiveness analyses to guide potential investment and partnerships and to diversify implementation pathways.
旨在减少生物多样性威胁的保护策略可能对社会经济系统中的多个部门产生重大影响，但这些共同效益往往理解不足。例如，许多对本地物种的威胁也会阻碍农业生产，但农业通常被视为与保护目标竞争。尽管全面的多目标决策分析通常超出了保护决策者的范围和能力，但如果不将关键的社会经济成本和效益纳入保护决策过程中，就可能错失多样化结果和创建成本分担多部门伙伴关系的机会。我们设计了一种简单且易于解释的方法，将共同效益纳入威胁管理优先级排序方法中。我们使用该方法分析了在澳大利亚艾尔湖流域实施 9 种入侵动物管理策略的农业共同效益，这些策略旨在确保 148 种受威胁物种在 50 年内的生存。通过与 24 名参与者（科学家、土地管理者、农业家和其他利益相关者）进行结构化的启发式过程，收集了有关每种策略的信息，包括成本、技术和社会可行性、对本地受威胁物种的效益以及对农业生产系统的共同效益。针对整个流域受威胁物种的有针对性的入侵动物管理的成本（每年 3300 万澳元）超过了农业产业的总体效益（估计每年 2.26 亿澳元）。当考虑到农业共同效益以及受威胁物种效益时，这些管理策略的投资回报率差异很大，显示出协同作用和挑战。我们的方法表明，将保护行动的共同效益纳入成本效益分析中，以指导潜在投资和伙伴关系，并多样化实施途径，具有重要价值。
