Open AccessSpending to save: What will it cost to halt Australia's extinction crisis?
Author(s) -
Wintle Brendan A.,
Cadenhead Natasha C.R.,
Morgain Rachel A.,
Legge Sarah M.,
Bekessy Sarah A.,
Cantele Matthew,
Possingham Hugh P.,
Watson James E.M.,
Maron Martine,
Keith David A.,
Garnett Stephen T.,
Woinarski John C. Z.,
Lindenmayer David B.
Publication year - 2019
Publication title -
conservation letters
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 3.153
H-Index - 79
ISSN - 1755-263X
DOI - 10.1111/conl.12682
Subject(s) - threatened species , conservation dependent species , endangered species , extinction (optical mineralogy) , natural resource economics , jurisdiction , business , biodiversity , iucn red list , near threatened species , critically endangered , environmental resource management , geography , ecology , environmental planning , political science , economics , biology , law , habitat , paleontology
As with most governments worldwide, Australian governments list threatened species and proffer commitments to recovering them. Yet most of Australia's imperiled species continue to decline or go extinct and a contributing cause is inadequate investment in conservation management. However, this has been difficult to evaluate because the extent of funding committed to such recovery in Australia, like in many nations, is opaque. Here, by collating disparate published budget figures of Australian governments, we show that annual spending on targeted threatened species recovery is around U.S.$92m (AU$122m) which is around one tenth of that spent by the U.S. endangered species recovery program, and about 15% of what is needed to avoid extinctions and recover threatened species. Our approach to estimating funding needs for species recovery could be applied in any jurisdiction and could be scaled up to calculate what is needed to achieve international goals for ending the species extinction crisis.