A return-on-investment framework to identify conservation priorities in Africa

Environmental conservation activities must continue to become more efficient and effective, especially in Africa where development and population growth pressures continue to escalate. Recently, prioritization of conservation resources has focused on explicitly incorporating the economic costs of conservation along with better defining the outcomes of these expenditures. We demonstrate how new global and continental data that spans social, economic, and ecological sectors creates an opportunity to incorporate return-on-investment (ROI) principles into conservation priority setting for Africa. We suggest that combining conservation priorities that factor in biodiversity value, habitat quality, and conservation management investments across terrestrial, freshwater, and coastal marine environments provides a new lens for setting global conservation priorities. Using this approach we identified seven regions capturing interior and coastal resources that also have high ROI values that support further investment. We illustrate how spatially explicit, yet flexible ROI analysis can help to better address uncertainty, risk, and opportunities for conservation, while making values that guide prioritization more transparent. In one case the results of this prioritization process were used to support new conservation investments. Acknowledging a clear research need to improve cost information, we propose that adopting a flexible ROI framework to set conservation priorities in Africa has multiple potential benefits.

环境保护活动亟需持续提升效率与效能，尤其是在非洲——该地区的发展与人口增长压力正持续加剧。近年来，保护资源的优先级划分工作愈发注重明确纳入保护行动的经济成本，并更清晰地界定此类投入的产出成效。本研究论证了：覆盖社会、经济与生态多个领域的新型全球及洲际数据集，为将投资回报率（return-on-investment, ROI）原则纳入非洲的保护优先级制定工作提供了可行契机。我们提出，将兼顾生物多样性价值、栖息地质量，以及覆盖陆地、淡水与近岸海洋环境的保护管理投入的保护优先级方案相结合，可为全球保护优先级的制定提供全新视角。依托该方法，我们识别出七个兼具内陆与近岸资源且投资回报率较高的区域，可支持后续的保护投入。我们还阐释了：兼具空间显性与灵活性的投资回报率分析，如何能更好地应对保护工作中的不确定性、风险与机遇，同时让指导优先级划分的各项指标更为透明。在一则实际案例中，该优先级划分流程的成果已被用于支持新增的保护投入项目。鉴于完善成本信息的明确研究需求，我们提出：在非洲采用灵活的投资回报率框架制定保护优先级，具备多方面潜在益处。