Optimal investment in conservation of species

Speaker: Mike McCarthy (University of Melbourne)

Abstract

This seminar describes how to invest finite conservation resources to save endangered species. Using a case study of threatened Australian birds, the optimal investment strategy is insensitive to the timeframe of the analysis, but is very sensitive to the chosen objective and the available budget. Money is only allocated to critically endangered species if the budget is sufficiently large. The optimal decision is difficult to determine intuitively, so decisions about investing resources in conservation of species would benefit from using formal decision theory methods rather than, or in addition to, intuitive rules.