Diminishing return on investment for biodiversity data in conservation planning

Abstract

It is generally assumed that gathering more data is a good investment for conservation planning. However, the benefits of additional data have seldom been evaluated by analyzing the return on investment. If there are diminishing returns in terms of improved planning, then resources might be better directed toward other actions, depending on their relative costs and benefits. Our aim was to determine the return on investment from spending different amounts on survey data before undertaking a program of implementing new protected areas. We estimated how much protea data is obtained as a function of dollars invested in surveying. We then simulated incremental protection and loss of habitat to determine the benefit of investment in that data on the protection of proteas. We found that, after an investment of only US$100,000 (∼780,000 South Africa Rand [ZAR]), there was little increase in the effectiveness of conservation prioritizations, despite the full data set costing at least 25 times that amount.

The role of scale in designing protected area systems to conserve poorly known species

“…Collecting more data on species locations takes time, and delaying conservation action to acquire more information can result in net conservation losses if habitat conversion is ongoing (e.g., Grantham et al 2008Grantham et al , 2009. The solution that is widely advocated and used is to instead ensure adequate representation of ''surrogates:'' species whose spatial distribution is well known, along with biophysical habitat variables that have been mapped (Margules and Sarkar 2007).…”

Integrating research, monitoring and management into an adaptive management framework to achieve effective conservation outcomes

“…While it is important to consider the trade-offs between monitoring, research and management (Grantham et al, 2008;McDonald-Madden et al, 2010;Sutherland et al, 2011), our study has demonstrated that continuing to implement conservation actions over time without rigorous evaluation of their effectiveness is inefficient. Active adaptive management addresses these concerns by emphasizing the iterative feedback between implementation of management actions and assessment of their effectiveness, continuously improving knowledge on the bs_bs_banner Animal Conservation.…”

Strategic requirements for plant conservation in the Arabian Peninsula

“…When measuring the conservation retention of Protea species in the South African landscape, GRANTHAM et al (2008) challenge the assumptions of BALMFORD & GASTON (1999) that biodiversity data are generally good value, Yet, whereas GRANTHAM et al 's (2009) study site in the Fynbos may not require years and years of ongoing inventory, their results still emphasise the need to conduct good, detailed baseline surveys (optimal 1 year surveying length for their study site) before effective conservation management can ensue. Whilst the IPA surveys in the Arabian Peninsula represent a good starting point for identifying priority sites for plant conservation, the week long surveys of a site such as Jibal Qaraqir is insufficient to provide the data required to meet the GSPC Targets under Objective 2.…”