TY - JOUR
T1 - Waiting can be an optimal conservation strategy, even in a crisis discipline
AU - Iacona, Gwenllian D.
AU - Possingham, Hugh P.
AU - Bode, Michael
N1 - Funding Information:
Excellence for Environmental Decisions with additional support from an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship (provided to H.P.P.). M.B. was funded by Australian Research Council Grant DE130100572. H.P.P. was supported by an Australian Research Council Laureate Fellowship.
Funding Information:
7. Conservation International (2014) Conservation International Foundation and Affili-ates Year End Financial Documents. Available at www.conservation.org/publications/ Documents/CI_2014_Financials.pdf. Accessed April 21, 2016.
Funding Information:
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS. We thank the H.P.P. and Armsworth laboratory members, P. R. Armsworth, D. Southwell, C. Sims, and L. Gross for useful discussion, and four confidential reviewers for comments that greatly improved the manuscript. G.I. was supported by the Australian Research Council Centre of
Publisher Copyright:
© 2017, National Academy of Sciences. All rights reserved.
PY - 2017/9/26
Y1 - 2017/9/26
N2 - Biodiversity conservation projects confront immediate and escalating threats with limited funding. Conservation theory suggests that the best response to the species extinction crisis is to spend money as soon as it becomes available, and this is often an explicit constraint placed on funding. We use a general dynamic model of a conservation landscape to show that this decision to “front-load” project spending can be suboptimal if a delay allows managers to use resources more strategically. Our model demonstrates the existence of temporal efficiencies in conservation management, which parallel the spatial efficiencies identified by systematic conservation planning. The optimal timing of decisions balances the rate of biodiversity decline (e.g., the relaxation of extinction debts, or the progress of climate change) against the rate at which spending appreciates in value (e.g., through interest, learning, or capacity building). We contrast the benefits of acting and waiting in two ecosystems where restoration can mitigate forest bird extinction debts: South Australia’s Mount Lofty Ranges and Paraguay’s Atlantic Forest. In both cases, conservation outcomes cannot be maximized by front-loading spending, and the optimal solution recommends substantial delays before managers undertake conservation actions. Surprisingly, these delays allow superior conservation benefits to be achieved, in less time than front-loading. Our analyses provide an intuitive and mechanistic rationale for strategic delay, which contrasts with the orthodoxy of front-loaded spending for conservation actions. Our results illustrate the conservation efficiencies that could be achieved if decision makers choose when to spend their limited resources, as opposed to just where to spend them.
AB - Biodiversity conservation projects confront immediate and escalating threats with limited funding. Conservation theory suggests that the best response to the species extinction crisis is to spend money as soon as it becomes available, and this is often an explicit constraint placed on funding. We use a general dynamic model of a conservation landscape to show that this decision to “front-load” project spending can be suboptimal if a delay allows managers to use resources more strategically. Our model demonstrates the existence of temporal efficiencies in conservation management, which parallel the spatial efficiencies identified by systematic conservation planning. The optimal timing of decisions balances the rate of biodiversity decline (e.g., the relaxation of extinction debts, or the progress of climate change) against the rate at which spending appreciates in value (e.g., through interest, learning, or capacity building). We contrast the benefits of acting and waiting in two ecosystems where restoration can mitigate forest bird extinction debts: South Australia’s Mount Lofty Ranges and Paraguay’s Atlantic Forest. In both cases, conservation outcomes cannot be maximized by front-loading spending, and the optimal solution recommends substantial delays before managers undertake conservation actions. Surprisingly, these delays allow superior conservation benefits to be achieved, in less time than front-loading. Our analyses provide an intuitive and mechanistic rationale for strategic delay, which contrasts with the orthodoxy of front-loaded spending for conservation actions. Our results illustrate the conservation efficiencies that could be achieved if decision makers choose when to spend their limited resources, as opposed to just where to spend them.
KW - Conservation finance
KW - Dynamic optimization
KW - Extinction debt
KW - Forest restoration
KW - Systematic conservation planning
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U2 - 10.1073/pnas.1702111114
DO - 10.1073/pnas.1702111114
M3 - Article
C2 - 28894004
AN - SCOPUS:85029870076
VL - 114
SP - 10497
EP - 10502
JO - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
JF - Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
SN - 0027-8424
IS - 39
ER -