Skip to main content

Conservation Planning when Costs Are Uncertain

Carwardine, Josie, Wilson, Kerrie A., Hajkowicz, Stefan A., Smith, Robert J., Klein, Carissa J., Watts, Matthew, Possingham, Hugh P. (2010) Conservation Planning when Costs Are Uncertain. Conservation Biology, 24 (6). pp. 1529-1537. (doi:10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01535.x) (The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided) (KAR id:28232)

The full text of this publication is not currently available from this repository. You may be able to access a copy if URLs are provided.
Official URL:
https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01535.x

Abstract

Spatially explicit information on the financial costs of conservation actions can improve the ability of conservation planning to achieve ecological and economic objectives, but the magnitude of this improvement may depend on the accuracy of the cost estimates. Data on costs of conservation actions are inherently uncertain. For example, the cost of purchasing a property for addition to a protected-area network depends on the individual landholder's preferences, values, and aspirations, all of which vary in space and time, and the effect of this uncertainty on the conservation priority of a site is relatively untested. We investigated the sensitivity of the conservation priority of sites to uncertainty in cost estimates. We explored scenarios for expanding (four-fold) the protected-area network in Queensland, Australia to represent a range of vegetation types, species, and abiotic environments, while minimizing the cost of purchasing new properties. We estimated property costs for 17, 790 10 x 10 km sites with data on unimproved land values. We systematically changed property costs and noted how these changes affected conservation priority of a site. The sensitivity of the priority of a site to changes in cost data was largely dependent on a site's importance for meeting conservation targets. Sites that were essential or unimportant for meeting targets maintained high or low priorities, respectively, regardless of cost estimates. Sites of intermediate conservation priority were sensitive to property costs and represented the best option for efficiency gains, especially if they could be purchased at a lower price than anticipated. Thus, uncertainty in cost estimates did not impede the use of cost data in conservation planning, and information on the sensitivity of the conservation priority of a site to estimates of the price of land can be used to inform strategic conservation planning before the actual price of the land is known.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01535.x
Additional information: Times Cited: 0
Subjects: Q Science > QH Natural history > QH75 Conservation (Biology)
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Human and Social Sciences > School of Anthropology and Conservation > DICE (Durrell Institute of Conservation and Ecology)
Depositing User: Bob Smith
Date Deposited: 02 Nov 2011 14:50 UTC
Last Modified: 09 Mar 2023 11:32 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/28232 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

  • Depositors only (login required):

Total unique views for this document in KAR since July 2020. For more details click on the image.