Monitoring does not always count.
The gross under-resourcing of conservation endeavours has placed an increasing emphasis on spending accountability. Increased accountability has led to monitoring forming a central element of conservation programs. Although there is little doubt that information obtained from monitoring can improve management of biodiversity, the cost (in time and/or money) of gaining this knowledge is rarely considered when making decisions about allocation of resources to monitoring. We present a simple framework allowing managers and policy advisors to make decisions about when to invest in monitoring to improve management.
McDonald-Madden
Eve
E
The University of Queensland, School of Biological Sciences, St Lucia, Queensland 4072, Australia. eve-mcdonald@csiro.au
Baxter
Peter W J
PW
Fuller
Richard A
RA
Martin
Tara G
TG
Game
Edward T
ET
Montambault
Jensen
J
Possingham
Hugh P
HP
D000818:Animals; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000191:economics*; D003663:Decision Trees; D004784:Environmental Monitoring / Q000191:economics; D008394:Marsupialia; D020308:Songbirds; D050685:Whale, Killer