The estimated cost of preventing extinction and progressing recovery for Australia's priority threatened species

Abstract

The global extinction crisis is intensifying rapidly, driven by habitat loss, overexploitation, climate change, invasive species, and disease. This unprecedented loss of species not only threatens ecological integrity but also undermines ecosystem services vital for human survival. In response, many countries have set ambitious conservation targets such as halting species extinctions, yet the necessary financial commitments to achieve this are rarely prescribed. Estimating costs can be achieved using an ensemble of spatially variable species-specific cost models for threat abatement activities. We employ this method to provide a cost assessment to halt extinctions for Australia's priority terrestrial and freshwater species. We show that it will cost ~AUD15.6 billion/year for 30 y to halt extinctions for these 99 priority species (comparable to 1% of Australia's GDP). The more ambitious objectives to move priority species down one threat category (~AUD103.7 billion/year) or remove from the threatened species list entirely (~AUD157.7 billion/year) would require considerably more investment. Regardless of what is spent, we found that 16 (16%) priority species could not be removed from the threatened species list due to extensive historical declines and pervasive, ongoing, unmanageable threats, such as climate change. But implementing these efforts could ensure conservation benefits for over 43% of all nationally listed nonmarine threatened species. Adequate funding is crucial for meeting government commitments and requires both government leadership and private sector investment.

Keywords: biodiversity; complementarity; conservation finance; conservation planning; prioritization.

Fig. 1.

Methods graphic: schematic representation of the methodological steps utilized to obtain results (–29).

Fig. 2.

Priority areas to meet the three objectives for the two threat management scenarios. (A) Highlights areas chosen to halt extinctions including costs (AUD/year for 30 y), area (km²), and number of species that is predicted to meet the objective. (B) Highlights areas chosen to downlist species’ conservation status including costs (AUD/year for 30 y), area (km²), and number of species that can meet the objective. (C) Highlights areas chosen to delist species including costs (AUD/year for 30 y), area (km²), and number of species that can meet the objective. The maps in the bottom row (“Existential threats managed”) may not be a subset of those in the top row (“All threats managed”) because the areas identified in the top row are already the optimal selection to meet the species targets. When Marxan is rerun using only the existential threat management scenario, different areas may be chosen based on factors like irreplaceability, cost, and the number of species benefiting. Consequently, the different scenario might prioritize entirely different areas. Additionally, the single color used in the maps can appear lighter where fewer pixels are chosen, reflecting a lower density of selected areas.

Fig. 3.

Emergency actions required by priority species. Stacked bar chart highlighting the proportion of species that require emergency actions to meet each objective.

Fig. 4.

Tenure types of priority areas. Map of mainland Australia where actions are needed for priority species under the downlisting objective, whereby the color shows the tenure types.