The costs of abating threats to Australias biodiversity

Yong, Chuanji; Ward, Michelle; Watson, James; Reside, April E.; Leeuwen, Stephen van; Legge, Sarah; Geary, William L.; Lintermans, Mark; Kennard, Mark J.; Stuart, Stephanie; Carwardine, Josie

doi:10.32942/osf.io/3qx7e

Cited by 3 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…Ideally this indicator should instead measure whether a species has received enough funding to ensure their recovery. Yong et al (2022) developed cost models for threat abatement strategies across Australia, providing a framework that can account for spatial variables such as terrain and travel distance (Yong et al 2022). Future report card analyses could use these models to estimate the approximate costs of threat abatement for each threatened species, and then assess the adequacy of provided funding using a similar metric to the habitat protection indicator.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A report card methodology to showcase progress towards threatened species recovery

Ward¹,

Rout²,

Stewart³

et al. 2022

Preprint

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Earth is currently experiencing a mass species extinction driven by human activities. While this is a global problem, Australia - one of just 17 mega-biodiverse nations, has one of the worst records for recent species extinctions and current levels of species endangerment. The nation, like all signatory nations to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD), is required to report on targets to halt extinction and recover species, yet the reporting is conducted in ways that lacks the relevant detail and the crisis is often miscommunicated and then not acted upon. To address this, we developed a streamlined threatened species recovery report card methodology, which combined two input indicators including planning, and funding, one output indicator capturing habitat protection, and one outcome indicator which highlights threatened species trajectories to provide simple scores that Australians can understand and track. Using our new method, our analysis showed that Australia scored an E grade (or a score 0.22 out of 1) on the input indicators, a D grade (or a score of 0.48) for the output indicator, and a F grade (or a score of 0.003) for the outcome indicator. When we analyse individual indicators, Australia scored particularly low in recovery plans (F or 0.10) and dedicated funding (F or 0.08). While the threatened species recovery report card highlighted a clear failure in many federal environmental legislation responsibilities, it provides a baseline for different governments and outlines clear directions for immediate improvement including developing adequate recovery plans, funding the actions in the recovery plans, protecting habitat from further destruction, and verifying recovery through monitoring and evaluation of species trajectories and supporting transparency and collaboration on the execution on the plans through an improved data infrastructure. Without an immediate step change in how Australia communicates and faces its species crisis, we will leave a tragic legacy of extinction and fail our obligations to future generations of Australians, and the international community.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

A report card methodology to showcase progress towards threatened species recovery

Ward¹,

Rout²,

Stewart³

et al. 2022

Preprint

Self Cite

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“…This manuscript does not directly use data but instead generates the output through cost models. The models, assumptions and output (Supporting Informations 1, 5, 9 and 10) are made available on the University of Western Australia Research Repository https://doi.org/10.26182/xd3d-7914 (Yong & Ward, 2023).…”

Section: Data Availability Statementmentioning

confidence: 99%

The costs of managing key threats to Australia's biodiversity

Yong

Ward

Watson

et al. 2023

Journal of Applied Ecology

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Budgeting for biodiversity conservation requires realistic estimates of threat abatement costs. However, data on threat management costs are often unavailable or unable to be extrapolated across relevant locations and scales. Conservation expenditure largely occurs without a priori cost estimates of management activities and is not recorded in ways that can inform future budgets or cost‐effective management decisions. We provided transparent, broadly applicable cost models for 18 Threat Abatement Strategies aimed at managing the processes threatening Australia's biodiversity. We defined the actions required to implement each strategy and used a consistent structure to classify costs of labour, travel, consumables and equipment. We drew upon expert knowledge and published literature to parameterise each model, estimating the implementation cost of each strategy across the Australian continent, accounting for spatial variables such as threat presence, terrain, and travel distance. Estimated annualised costs for the threat abatement strategies varied considerably between strategies and across Australia, ranging from $24 to $879,985 per km2 ($0.24–$8880 per ha). On average, labour was the largest cost component (49%), followed by consumables (37%), travel (13%) and equipment (2%). Based on national scale variables and assumptions, cost estimates across Australia for each threat abatement strategy ranged from +44% and −33% of the most common cost estimate. Policy implications. We provide a consistent and transparent approach to budgeting for threat abatement strategies, aiming to improve conservation planning processes, outcomes, and reporting across Australia. In addition, understanding the budget required to achieve threat management outcomes can aid revenue‐raising and target setting. The models, cost layers and estimates we generate provide the basis for a nationally consistent approach for estimating and recording the cost of biodiversity management strategies, which should be continually updated and improved with local‐scale information over time.

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Restoring habitat for fire-impacted species’ across degraded Australian landscapes

Ward

Tulloch

Stewart³

et al. 2022

Environ. Res. Lett.

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In the summer of 2019–2020, southern Australia experienced the largest fires on record, detrimentally impacting the habitat of native species, many of which were already threatened by past and current anthropogenic land use. A large-scale restoration effort to improve degraded species habitat would provide fire-affected species with the chance to recover and persist in burnt and unburnt habitat. To facilitate this, decision-makers require information on priority species needs for restoration intervention, the suite of potential restoration interventions, and the priority locations for applying these interventions. We prioritize actions in areas where restoration would most likely provide cost-effective benefits to priority species (defined by each species proportion of habitat burned, threat status, and vulnerability to fires), by integrating current and future species habitat suitability maps with spatially modelled costs of restoration interventions such as replanting, removing invasive species, and implementing ecologically appropriate fire management. We show that restoring the top ∼69% (112 million hectares) of the study region (current and future distributions of priority species) accounts for, on average, 95% of current and future habitat for every priority species and costs ∼AUD$73 billion yr−1 (AUD$650 hectare−1 yr−1) annualized over 30 years. This effort would include restoration actions over 6 million hectares of fire-impacted habitat, costing ∼AUD$8.8 billion/year. Large scale restoration efforts are often costly but can have significant societal co-benefits beyond biodiversity conservation. We also show that up to 291 MtCO2 (∼150 Mt DM) of carbon could be sequestered by restoration efforts, resulting in approximately AUD$253 million yr−1 in carbon market revenue if all carbon was remunerated. Our approach highlights the scale, costs, and benefits of targeted restoration activities both inside and outside of the immediate bushfire footprint over vast areas of different land tenures.

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The costs of abating threats to Australias biodiversity

Cited by 3 publications

References 17 publications

A report card methodology to showcase progress towards threatened species recovery

A report card methodology to showcase progress towards threatened species recovery

The costs of managing key threats to Australia's biodiversity

Restoring habitat for fire-impacted species’ across degraded Australian landscapes

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