A recognition and analysis of the economic trade-offs between biodiversity conservation projects

Abstract

The Department of Conservation (DoC) is responsible for the recovery of indigenous species and ecosystems, and the control of introduced mammals under the Conservation Act 1987, the Wild Animal Control Act 1977, the National Parks Act 1980, the Reserves Act 1977, and the Wildlife Act 1953. This task is formidable as much of New Zealand's indigenous biota is threatened and endangered, debate surrounds the management of pest-resource systems, and little economic appraisal is performed or is required by legislation. Biodiversity conservation is essentially left to the enthusiastic manager who has few goal posts to aim for, or grounds for defending management actions.

This thesis provides a number of suggestions for improving biodiversity conservation management. These suggestions are made following an examination of different approaches to the management of introduced mammals such as 'mainland islands', and by quantification of the cost effectiveness of different projects. Three conceptual approaches are examined for the management of introduced mammals, and a new economic evaluation method is used to measure conservation outcomes. To justify risky investments, to maintain government support for conservation, and to promote greater accountability within DoC, it is suggested that there is a need for economic quantification, and greater collaboration between ecologists and economists.

The projects evaluated were selected according to several criteria. These included a range of approaches to pest management, each of the three urgency categories in the Molloy and Davis species priority setting system, and coverage of a wide variety of taxa (e.g., birds, mammals, reptiles, plants). Results suggest that there are inefficiencies and trade-offs in biasing conservation strategies towards the charismatic megafauna. Intensive pest management does not provide the most cost effective approach to biodiversity protection and low discount rates can disadvantage projects that have added capability. Finally, the appraisal highlights the difficulties in evaluating conservation.