Factoring economic costs into conservation planning may not improve agreement over priorities for protection

Abstract

Conservation organizations must redouble efforts to protect habitat given continuing biodiversity declines. Prioritization of future areas for protection is hampered by disagreements over what the ecological targets of conservation should be. Here we test the claim that such disagreements will become less important as conservation moves away from prioritizing areas for protection based only on ecological considerations and accounts for varying costs of protection using return-on-investment (ROI) methods. We combine a simulation approach with a case study of forests in the eastern United States, paying particular attention to how covariation between ecological benefits and economic costs influences agreement levels. For many conservation goals, agreement over spatial priorities improves with ROI methods. However, we also show that a reliance on ROI-based prioritization can sometimes exacerbate disagreements over priorities. As such, accounting for costs in conservation planning does not enable society to sidestep careful consideration of the ecological goals of conservation.

Not all data are equal: Influence of data type and amount in spatial conservation prioritisation

“…Our results are aligned with previous studies showing how costs may in some situations override biodiversity in spatial prioritisations (Armsworth, ; Armsworth et al., ; Balmford et al., ; Bode et al., ; Ferraro, ; Leathwick et al., ; Naidoo et al., ). Our work provides a mathematical explanation and shows how the influence of cost layers significantly depends on the combination of costs and benefits in the objective function (Equation ).…”

“…This is sometimes referred to as the conservation value of a site in the literature, although terminology varies (Kukkala & Moilanen, ; Margules & Pressey, ). In spatial prioritisations, the costs and consequences of acting at a site also affect its numerical value, in which case terms cost‐effectiveness or return‐on‐investment (ROI) are often used (Armsworth et al., ). Priority of a site, on the other hand, measures the relative urgency and cost‐effectiveness of acting at a location in relation to other candidate sites.…”

Collaborative conservation planning: Quantifying the contribution of expert engagement to identify spatial conservation priorities

“…The most significant individual change made in the consultation process was the inclusion of a landscape condition layer, resulting in an average cell ranking change of 6% and substantial changes in the location of the bottom ranked areas (Figure ). This is in line with earlier findings that costs, condition, or threat layers can influence conservation prioritization solutions much more than single biodiversity layers (Armsworth et al., ; Ferraro, ; Kujala, Lahoz‐Monfort, Elith, & Moilanen, ). Given their large influence, it is critical that the accuracy and influence of these layers be considered carefully in SCP projects.…”

Assessment and planning for emerging impacts of climate change on species

“…We assessed ecological trade-offs associated with adopting two different planning scenarios, but this analysis did not account for financial costs of implementing these scenarios. Accounting for varying costs of implementing conservation actions can improve agreement among stakeholders over where to place conservation efforts (Armsworth et al 2017) and thus improve the utility of prioritization outputs. However, prioritizing retention and restoration actions on cheap land often leads to ineffective and inefficient conservation plans (Venter et al 2014).…”