Conservation partners in Hawaii are tasked with protecting and restoring native ecosystems across remote and varied landscapes in the face of continuous invasions of novel threats and a changing climate. Hundreds of species have been lost to extinction and hundreds more remain at risk. To guide their efforts, managers have dozens of excellent recovery plans that comprise reams of pages. Implementing those plans, however, poses an often‐overwhelming challenge because funds are not currently adequate to implement every plan in every place. As a result, managers make tough decisions on where to focus effort and which conservation actions should be implemented first. Those decisions must include locations and actions that will benefit multiple species, and thereby enhance complementarity and cost effectiveness. With hundreds of species at risk and dozens on the brink of extinction, including plants, vertebrates, and invertebrates, those decisions are complex and unmanageable. The purpose of this project is to improve planning for the conservation of biodiversity in Maui Nui by developing a systematic and quantitative approach to planning conservation actions for multiple species at risk. The decision tools developed by this project will enable managers to prioritize management units and conservation actions within those units to maximize outcomes with limited conservation funds.
Objective/justification:
The objective of this project is to develop an analytical framework to guide resource allocation decisions that will be applied to a larger planning initiative already in progress for the conservation of biodiversity on Maui Nui. The decision framework will build on the foundations of the plan, which establish a network of essential habitat areas and management units that include information essential to cost efficient decisions to conserve biodiversity.