Liana Joseph and others from UQ are collaborating with Richard Maloney and Shaun O’Conner from the DOC NZ to develop and implement a novel method for optimising resource allocation among New Zealand's threatened species. 

The Project Prioritisation Protocol (PPP) simultaneously considers management cost, benefits (including species values) and the likelihood that management will succeed.  Threatened species projects are prioritised according to their cost-efficiency or, put another way, their return on investment. 

We have completed a case study using 32 of New Zealand’s threatened species.  We have completed two manuscripts to be submitted to Conservation Biology and Pacific Conservation Biology on the case study data.  The Department of Conservation is currently in the process on collecting the necessary data to rank all 2000 threatened species.  We will prepare at least two more papers discussing the results of the PPP applied to all 2000 species which will also be submitted to international journals.

Convenor: Dr Liana Joseph