Cost-Effective Resource Allocator: A decision support tool for threatened species management

Faced with increasing rates of biodiversity loss and modest conservation budgets, it is essential that natural resource managers allocate their financial resources in a cost-effective manner and provide transparent evidence for extra funding. We developed the 'Cost-Effective Resource Allocator', a Microsoft Excel-based decision support tool to assist natural resource managers and policy makers, to prioritize the set of management strategies that maximize the total number of years that a suite of species is expected to persist given a budget constraint. We describe this tool using a case study of four locally threatened species from the Australian Commonwealth National Park of Christmas Island in the Indian Ocean. These include: a native fern (Pneumatopteris truncata), the Christmas Island Red Crab (Gecarcoidea natalis), the Golden Bosun (Phaethon lepturus fulvus), and Abbott's Booby (Papasula abbotti). Under a hypothetical budget of 8,826,000 AUD over ten years, in which all species are considered equal, our tool recommends funding: fern propagation and planting, rat control, cat control, and Yellow Crazy Ant (Anoplolepis gracilipes) survey and control. We found that the cost-effectiveness rankings of these strategies were sensitive to the importance that assessors' assigned to different species. The 'Cost-Effective Resource Allocator' can accommodate input from up to eight assessors, and analyse a maximum of 50 management strategies for 30 species.