Success
of
biodiversity
conservation
projects
is
determined
by
a
suite
of
biological
and
economic
factors.
Donor
and
public
understanding
of
the
economic
factors
is
becoming
increasingly
central
to
the
longevity
of
funding
for
conservation
efforts.
Unlike
typical
economic
evaluation,
many
costs
and
benefits
related
to
conservation
efforts
are
realized
in
diverse
and
non-‐monetary
terms.
We
identify
the
types
of
benefits
and
costs
that
are
assigned
to
biodiversity
projects
and
examine
a
number
of
well-‐developed
and
some
new
techniques
that
economists
use
to
convert
benefits
and
costs
into
monetary
values
so
that
they
may
be
compared
in
a
common
metric.
Commonly
costs
are
more
readily
identified
than
benefits,
with
financial
project
costs
the
most
frequently
reported
and
to
a
much
lesser
extent,
opportunity
and
damage
costs.
Additionally,
costs
have
been
recognized
as
being
largely
spatially
dependent
while
benefits
have
not
received
this
same
distinction.
Opportunity
costs
have
been
largely
absent
from
many
conservation
project
analyses
likely
overstating
the
returns
to
project
investment.
Most
current
evaluation
methodologies
focus
mainly
on
costs
and
rely
primarily
on
cost-‐effectiveness
analysis
more
commonly
than
cost-‐benefit
analysis,
resulting
from
the
difficultly
in
measuring
benefits.
Movement
toward
the
measurement
of
the
benefits
and
costs
of
conservation
efforts
is
urged
throughout
most
of
the
literature.
Improvements
to
the
determination
of
conservation
project
returns
can
be
made
through
the
incorporation
of
spatial
considerations
of
economic
impacts
which
includes
regional
economic
analysis.[Show full abstract]
Description:
Pre-print version of a journal article in Wildlife Research 40(2), 2013.
![[PDF]](/themes/LURA/images/mimes/b_pdf.png "PDF file"){kind=small}
