Data from: Biodiversity gains from efficient use of private sponsorship for flagship species conservation

To address the global extinction crisis, both efficient use of existing conservation funding and new sources of funding are vital. Private sponsorship of charismatic ‘flagship’ species conservation represents an important source of new funding, but has been criticized as being inefficient. However, the ancillary benefits of privately sponsored flagship species conservation via actions benefiting other species have not been quantified, nor have the benefits of incorporating such sponsorship into objective prioritization protocols. Here, we use a comprehensive dataset of conservation actions for the 700 most threatened species in New Zealand to examine the potential biodiversity gains from national private flagship species sponsorship programmes. We find that private funding for flagship species can clearly result in additional species and phylogenetic diversity conserved, via conservation actions shared with other species. When private flagship species funding is incorporated into a prioritization protocol to preferentially sponsor shared actions, expected gains can be more than doubled. However, these gains are consistently smaller than expected gains in a hypothetical scenario where private funding could be optimally allocated among all threatened species. We recommend integrating private sponsorship of flagship species into objective prioritization protocols to sponsor efficient actions that maximize biodiversity gains, or wherever possible, encouraging private donations for broader biodiversity goals.

为应对全球物种灭绝危机，高效利用现有保护资金与开拓新型融资渠道均至关重要。针对极具魅力的‘旗舰物种（flagship species）’开展的私人赞助保护，是一类重要的新型融资来源，但此前一直被指效率低下。然而，私人赞助旗舰物种保护所带来的附带效益——即通过相关保护行动惠及其他物种的情况——尚未得到量化，而将此类赞助纳入客观优先级排序协议（prioritization protocol）所能产生的效益也未被评估。本研究依托新西兰700种受威胁物种的全面保护行动数据集，探究国家级私人旗舰物种赞助计划所能带来的潜在生物多样性增益。研究发现，用于旗舰物种的私人资助可通过与其他物种共享的保护行动，明确实现额外的物种与系统发育多样性（phylogenetic diversity）保护。若将私人旗舰物种资助纳入优先级排序框架，优先资助共享行动，预期增益可提升一倍以上。但这类增益始终低于某一假设场景下的预期效益：该场景中私人资助可在所有受威胁物种间实现最优分配。我们建议将旗舰物种私人赞助纳入客观优先级排序框架，以资助能最大化生物多样性增益的高效行动；或在可行情况下，鼓励私人捐赠以支持更广泛的生物多样性保护目标。