Deciding What To Save

摘要

The Red List is often used to decide how best to spend conservation dollars, but is there a better way?rnPrevious attempts to make such decisions more rational, by using a scoring system, for example, have all failed to take two vital factors adequately into account, says Hugh Possingham of the University of Queensland in St Lucia, Australia. These are the likelihood of success and the limiting role of money.rnTo get around that, Possingham and his team developed what they call the Project Prioritization Protocol, which works in the same way as a business cost-effectiveness analysis (Conservation Biology, DOI:rn10.1111/j.1523-1739.2008.01124.x).rnThe team tested the PPP on 32 threatened species, with a fixed budget. When species were classified only by their evolutionary uniqueness, or "worth", there was money to save 11 species. When they were prioritised according to worth, cost of saving, probability of success and expected benefit, 16 could be saved. 'The formula allows you to rationally trade off different factors and mathematically optimise the allocation of funds," says Possingham.