U.S. Department of Agriculture: Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service
Document Type
Article
Date of this Version
January 2004
Abstract
Management actions directed towards the conservation of species or habitats are usually measured in resource improvement. Nevertheless, the decision to select and carry out such actions are rooted in the available funding. Therefore, to truly evaluate the benefit/costs of a conservation-directed management action, the resource improvement should be in the same metric as the expenditures. To this end, we describe here a variety of methods for attaching monetary values to rare species and habitats. We also give examples of applications with which we have been involved to demonstrate how such species and habitat valuations have allowed economic analyses of conservation approaches. The economic results helps to decide on how best to obtain the most from finite funding resources.
Comments
Published in Endangered Species Update 21:2 (April-June 2004, pp. 66-73. http://www.umich.edu/~esupdate/