What is the Price of Conservation? A Review of the Status Quo and Recommendations for Improving Cost Reporting

Abstract

Wildlife conservation is severely limited by funding. Therefore, to maximize biodiversity outcomes, assessing financial costs of interventions is as important as assessing effectiveness. We reviewed the reporting of costs in studies testing the effectiveness of conservation interventions: 13.3% of the studies provided numeric costs, and 8.8% reported total costs. Even fewer studies broke down these totals into constituent costs, making it difficult to assess the relevance of costs to different contexts. Cost reporting differed between continents and the taxa or habitats targeted by interventions, with higher cost reporting in parts of the Global South. A further analysis of data focused on mammals identified that interventions related to agriculture, invasive species, transport, and residential development reported costs more frequently. We identify opportunities for conservationists to improve future practice through encouraging systematic reporting and collation of intervention costs, using economic evaluation tools, and increasing understanding and skills in finance and economics.

Keywords: cost-effectiveness; decision-making; effectiveness; efficiency; evidence-based conservation.

Figure 1.

Level of cost reporting in studies that assess the effectiveness of interventions (n = 1987) split by (a) category of cost reporting, (b) publication date, (c) binned publication date and (d) continent. For each column in panels (c) and (d), the sample size is given at the top of the bar. In panels (a) and (b), the y-axis represents the number of studies; panel (b) shows the distribution of the data set over time. In panels (c) and (d), the y-axis displays the proportion of studies within each level of the explanatory variable. The distribution of studies shown in panel (b) is influenced by the publication dates of the different synopses included in the study that will have compiled literature up until different end years.

Figure 2.

Level of cost reporting in mammal studies (n = 887) that assess the effectiveness of interventions split by (a) category of cost reporting, (b) IUCN category, and (c) intervention type. In panel (a), the y-axis represents the number of studies in each category. In panels (b) and (c), the y axis displays the proportion of studies within each level of the explanatory variable. For each column the sample size is given at the top of the bar. The bar colors in all graphs are consistent with the shading of columns in panel (a). Abbreviations: Agri, agriculture and aquaculture; BRU, biological resource use; CR, critically endangered; EN, endangered; EW, extinct in the wild; HR, habitat restoration; Inv, invasive and other problematic species, genes, and diseases; LC, of least concern; NSM, natural system modifications; NT, near threatened; Res, residential and commercial development; SpM, species management; Transp, transportation and service corridors; VU, vulnerable.