The Cost of Postponing Conservation Planning and Implementation

Abstract

"Even when social institutions agree on conservation goals, for instance, the protection of endemic, rare, or at-risk species in regional conservation area networks, there is typically a long waiting period between setting goals and the formulation of an explicit action plan to achieve those goals, and an even longer period before the plan is funded and implemented on the ground. Meanwhile habitats continue to be transformed through human habitation, resource extraction, agricultural and industrial development, etc. There is plenty of evidence showing that such habitat transformation disproportionately affects regions of high species richness and endemism, particularly in the tropics. This raises the possibility that ongoing habitat transformation also disproportionately affects areas with high complementarity value, that is, those areas that have unique biological features not represented in other potential conservation areas. Areas with high complementarity value have the highest priority for conservation management if the goal is to conserve biodiversity in as little total area as possible, that is, the goal is to minimize the economic and social cost of a conservation plan."