Half of resources in threatened species conservation plans are allocated to research and monitoring

Abstract

Funds to combat biodiversity loss are insufficient, requiring conservation managers to make trade-offs between costs for actions to avoid further loss and costs for research and monitoring to guide effective actions. Using species' management plans for 2328 listed species from three countries we show that 50% of species' proposed recovery plan budgets are allocated to research and monitoring. The proportion of budgets allocated to research and monitoring vary among jurisdictions and taxa, but overall, species with higher proportions of budgets allocated to research and monitoring have poorer recovery outcomes. The proportion allocated to research and monitoring is lower for more recent recovery plans, but for some species, plans have allocated the majority of funds to information gathering for decades. We provide recommendations for careful examination of the value of collecting new information in recovery planning to ensure that conservation programs emphasize action or research and monitoring that directly informs action.

Fig. 1. Proportion of the budget allocated to research and monitoring for threatened species (n = 2261 species in three jurisdictions: United States (U.S.), New Zealand (NZ), and New South Wales (NSW)).

The stippled red line indicates the number of species with >95% of the budget allocated to research and monitoring (RM). The box and whiskers show the proportion of recovery plan budgets allocated to research and monitoring in each jurisdiction, with the median as a line, first and third quartiles as hinges, and the highest and lowest values within 1.5 times the inter-quartile range as whiskers. The black stippled line indicates the mean among jurisdictions (50%). Maps were created in ArcGIS for Desktop (10.3, ESRI Inc., USA).

Fig. 2. Proportion of the budget allocated to research and monitoring for threatened taxa.

The median and range of proportion of recovery plan budgets allocated to research and monitoring (RM) for n = 2261 threatened species in a variety of taxa in the United States (U.S.), New Zealand (NZ), and New South Wales, Australia (NSW). For each taxon, the box and whiskers show the median as a line, first and third quartiles as hinges, and the highest and lowest values within 1.5 times the inter-quartile range as whiskers. Maps were created in ArcGIS for Desktop (10.3, ESRI Inc., USA).

Fig. 3. Species with poor recovery outcomes have a higher proportion of the budget allocated to research and monitoring.

The median and range of proportion of recovery plan budgets allocated to research and monitoring (RM) for n = 1143 threatened species in the United States (U.S.), New Zealand (NZ), and New South Wales, Australia (NSW) as a function of index of recovery. The index of recovery is the sum of reports in which population increases (+1), decreases (−1), or remains constant (0) between assessments, the range for the U.S. is: −11 to 11, NZ: −3 to 3, and NSW: −5 to 5 (although no species had an index of −5 or −4). Taxon of each species is indicated by color. For each recovery index, the box and whiskers show the median as a line, first and third quartiles as hinges, and the highest and lowest values within 1.5 times the inter-quartile range as whiskers. All vector graphics are open source.