Conservation 'triage' is a controversial topic (see recent Science Feature), but the fact remains that wildlife managers around the world are faced with difficult decisions when deciding how to spend insufficient funds to reverse the decline of endangered species. Increased investments would help - but in the meantime, can we help managers weigh out their options? Yes, we can. Almost 3 years ago, I joined a SESYNC working group lead by Drs. Leah Gerber (Arizona State University) and Michael Runge (USGS) to develop a Resource Allocation Explorer Tool that the US Fish and Wildlife Service can use to explore resource allocation scenarios. In October 2018 we published a Policy Forum article about our efforts (Link to paper / PDF of paper / Press release). This was an ambitious project, and one that benefited greatly from the direct input of many USFWS staff from all levels. In the paper we propose that the diverse social, economic and environmental values of competing stakeholders, as well as consideration of many hundreds of federally protected species and conservation actions complicate decisions. This complex decision landscape often leads to decisions on how to allocate funding being approached in an ad hoc and implicit fashion. We propose a structured, logical and transparent approach to allocating limited resources to conservation and recovery efforts as an alternative to the status quo. Our proposed framework improves the quality and transparency of Endangered Species resource allocation decisions by identifying which objectives are most important and how best to allocate funds to save the most species for a given budget. Transparent and cost-effective resource allocation can instill greater confidence in funding agencies and conservation partners in the impact and success of their spending, a process that has led to overall increases in conservation investment in countries such as Australia and New Zealand. To read about our efforts, please check out our paper and stay tuned for additional outputs from the working group!
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