Species saving formula all the rage amongst conservationist – which species to save?

Image via Wikipedia

It’s a certain tragedy when conservationist have to apply economic style formulas to determine which species they are going to save and which they are going to let fall in to extinction.  It’s even worse when you consider what economic formulas are doing for our economy. 

WOULD the animal have made it into the ark? That’s the kind of question conservationists have been asking when it comes to the thorny issue of picking which threatened species to save.

Kerstin Zander of the Charles Darwin University in Darwin, Australia, and her colleagues looked at conserving cattle – the species with the most number of breeds to have gone extinct. They turned to an approach first outlined by economist Martin Weitzman at Harvard University.

In the 1990s, Weitzman devised a formula for prioritising species for conservation. This considers the cost of saving a species, how useful or genetically diverse it is, and the increase in its chance of survival if chosen.

Conservationists deciding which species to survive – environment – 08 March 2009 – New Scientist

No related posts.