The mismeasure of conservation

Robert L Pressey¹, Piero Visconti², Madeleine C McKinnon³, Georgina G Gurney⁴, Megan D Barnes⁵, Louise Glew⁶, Martine Maron⁷

Affiliations

¹ Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Electronic address: bob.pressey@jcu.edu.au.
² International Institute for Applied System Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.
³ Bright Impact, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁴ Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.
⁵ Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy, School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia; University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA.
⁶ 26 Morning Dove, Irvine, CA, USA.
⁷ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences & Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

PMID: 34303527
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2021.06.008

Free article

Review

The mismeasure of conservation

Robert L Pressey et al. Trends Ecol Evol. 2021 Sep.

Free article

. 2021 Sep;36(9):808-821.

doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2021.06.008. Epub 2021 Jul 21.

Authors

Robert L Pressey¹, Piero Visconti², Madeleine C McKinnon³, Georgina G Gurney⁴, Megan D Barnes⁵, Louise Glew⁶, Martine Maron⁷

Affiliations

¹ Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia. Electronic address: bob.pressey@jcu.edu.au.
² International Institute for Applied System Analysis, Laxenburg, Austria.
³ Bright Impact, San Francisco, CA, USA.
⁴ Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence for Coral Reef Studies, James Cook University, Townsville, Australia.
⁵ Centre for Environmental Economics and Policy, School of Agriculture and Environment, The University of Western Australia, Perth, Australia; University of Hawaii at Manoa, Honolulu, HI, USA.
⁶ 26 Morning Dove, Irvine, CA, USA.
⁷ School of Earth and Environmental Sciences & Centre for Biodiversity and Conservation Science, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Australia.

PMID: 34303527
DOI: 10.1016/j.tree.2021.06.008

Abstract

One of the basic purposes of protected areas and other effective area-based conservation interventions is to achieve conservation impact, the sum of avoided biodiversity loss and promoted recovery relative to outcomes without protection. In the context of the Convention on Biological Diversity's negotiations on the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, we find that targets for area-based interventions are framed overwhelmingly with measures that fail to inform decision-makers about impact and that risk diverting limited resources away from achieving it. We show that predicting impact in space and time is feasible and can provide the basis for global guidance for jurisdictions to develop targets for conservation impact and shift investment priorities to areas where impact can be most effectively achieved.

Keywords: Conservation impact; Conservation planning; Impact evaluation; Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework; Protected area targets.

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Conflict of interest statement

Declaration of interests No interests are declared.

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The mismeasure of conservation

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The mismeasure of conservation

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