Is conservation triage just smart decision making?
Conservation efforts and emergency medicine face comparable problems: how to use scarce resources wisely to conserve valuable assets. In both fields, the process of prioritising actions is known as triage. Although often used implicitly by conservation managers, scientists and policymakers, triage has been misinterpreted as the process of simply deciding which assets (e.g. species, habitats) will not receive investment. As a consequence, triage is sometimes associated with a defeatist conservation ethic. However, triage is no more than the efficient allocation of conservation resources and we risk wasting scarce resources if we do not follow its basic principles.
Bottrill
Madeleine C
MC
The University of Queensland, The Applied Environmental Decision Analysis Centre, The Ecology Centre, Brisbane, QLD 4072, Australia. m.bottrill@uq.edu.au
Joseph
Liana N
LN
Carwardine
Josie
J
Bode
Michael
M
Cook
Carly
C
Game
Edward T
ET
Grantham
Hedley
H
Kark
Salit
S
Linke
Simon
S
McDonald-Madden
Eve
E
Pressey
Robert L
RL
Walker
Susan
S
Wilson
Kerrie A
KA
Possingham
Hugh P
HP
D000818:Animals; D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000191:economics; D003657:Decision Making; D012945:Social Values