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辟新型融资渠道均至关重要。极具吸引力的“旗舰物种（flagship species）”保护的私人赞助，虽是新型保护资金的重要来源，但此前被诟病效率低下。然而，私人赞助旗舰物种保护所产生的、通过惠及其他物种的保护行动带来的附带效益，以及将此类赞助纳入客观优先级制定方案所能获得的效益，均未得到量化评估。本研究依托新西兰700种受威胁最严重物种的全面保护行动数据集，探究全国性私人旗舰物种赞助计划可能带来的生物多样性收益。研究发现，通过与其他物种共享的保护行动，用于旗舰物种的私人资助可显著提升受保护物种数量与系统发育多样性（phylogenetic diversity）。若将旗舰物种私人资助纳入优先级制定方案，优先赞助共享保护行动，预期收益可提升一倍以上。但此类收益始终低于一种假想场景下的预期收益：即私人资助可在所有受威胁物种间实现最优分配。本研究建议，将旗舰物种私人赞助纳入客观优先级制定方案，以资助可最大化生物多样性收益的高效保护行动；或在可行范围内，鼓励私人捐赠以支持更广泛的生物多样性保护目标。