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| The current study focuses on the influence of geopolitical coordination of conservation
strategies on cost and efficiency in terms of species representation when selecting network
of protected areas. Conservation policies in the EU are implemented at many different
administrative levels: from the European Union and national levels, to regional or/county
levels within member countries. This arise the question what size of efficiency gains could
be achieved if planning of conservation priorities could be coordinated between geopolitical
units. Using data for the nationwide distribution of 763 species, representing all Danish
species within eight taxa, we compared illustrative costs for the addition of new areas to
the existing conservation network in order to ensure full coverage of all species. We found
that the cost of independent regional planning is 20-fold higher than an inter-regional and
nationally co-ordinated strategy. We also found that substituting land prices for a simple
land-area measure in our analyses increased the expected conservation costs differential
significantly, without increasing coverage of species representations. We suggest that in
economic and biodiversity terms it can largely be a win–win situation to set a common
goal, to develop priority-strategies, and to coordinate actions at higher rather than lower
levels of administration. | |
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