Optimum allocation of conservation funds and choice of conservation programs for a set of African cattle breeds

Abstract

-Although funds for livestock conservation are limited there is little known about the optimal allocation of conservation funds. A new algorithm was used to allocate Mio US$ 1, 2, 3, 5 or unlimited funds, discounted over 50 years, on 23 African cattle breeds conserved with four different possible conservation programs. Additionally, Mio US$ 1 was preferably allocated to breeds with special traits. The conceptional in situ conservation programs strongly involve breeders and give them part of the responsibility for the conservation of the breed. Therefore, the pure in situ conservation was more efficient than cryoconservation or combined in situ and cryoconservation. The average annual discounted conservation cost for a breed can be as low as US$ 1000 to US$ 4400 depending on the design of the conservation program and the economic situation of the country of conservation. The choice of the breeds and the optimal conservation program and the amount of money allocated to each breed depend on many factors such as the amount of funds available, the conservation potential of each breed, the effects of the conservation program as well as its cost. With Mio US$ 1, 64% of the present diversity could be maintained over 50 years, which is 13% more than would be maintained if no conservation measures were implemented. Special traits could be conserved with a rather small amount of the total funds. Diversity can not be conserved completely, not even with unlimited funds. A maximum of 92% of the present diversity could be conserved with Mio US$ 10, leaving 8% of the diversity to unpredictable happenings. The suggested algorithm proved to be useful for optimal allocation of conservation funds. It allocated the funds optimally among breeds by identifying the most suited conservation program for each breed, also accounting for differences in currency exchange rates between the different countries.optimal allocation / conservation program / African cattle / conservation funds / choice of program

Geographical distribution of sheep breeds in Brazil and their relationship with climatic and environmental factors as risk classification for conservation

“…Although the Santa Inês is a Brazilian breed, it was considered as commercial due to its wide distribution and recent history as to crossbreeding (Paiva et al, 2005, McManus et al, 2010. The number of animals per flock could be an important factor in making decisions on conservation priorities (Reist-Marti et al, 2006) but this information was not available in this study.…”

“…He proposes a model system which encompasses the other important factors of geographical concentration and genetic erosion. Reist-Marti et al (2006) proposed a number of factors that contributed to priority for conservation among a group of African cattle breeds. Among these factors were the total population size of the breed and trends in population size in the previous 10 years, distribution of the breed within the country, degree or risk of indiscriminate crossbreeding, level of organization of farmers, existence of ongoing conservation schemes, political stability of the country, sociocultural importance of the breed, and the reliability of this information.…”

Conservation priorities for Ethiopian sheep breeds combining threat status, breed merits and contributions to genetic diversity

“…Conservation of the five breeds with highest total utility would still conserve 73.4% of the genetic diversity in Ethiopian sheep (Eding diversity). The reduction in the total genetic diversity conserved when considering current breed merits in this study is higher than that reported for African cattle breeds [21], where only 0.5% of the diversity conserved (disregarding breeds with special merits) would be lost when breeds with special merits were favored for conservation. Inclusion of the sixth highest ranking breed (Bonga) would conserve most of the genetic diversity (92.5%).…”

“…Earlier studies, except Ruane [22] and Reist-Marti et al [21], have prioritized breeds based solely on their contributions to genetic diversity e.g. [5,17,26].…”

“…There has been very limited research [21,24] on optimally combining measures of neutral diversity and breed merits in order to rank breeds on their total utility. The simplified approach adopted in this study with an arbitrary twofold weight on neutral diversity provided a working ranking of the breeds studied.…”