BLOG - Prioritising species for monitoring conservation actions

Evaluating the success of a conservation strategy is a crucial element of best practice management. Without it, managers cant benefit from the experiences of others and scarce funds available could be wasted. And, if the strategy isnt actually working, a lack of evaluation could lead to misguided policy directives and a loss of confidence of donors. When it comes to evaluation, the challenge is always designing and implementing effective monitoring programs when funds are limited. Decisions need to be made about how, where, and what to monitor. To deal with this problem, many have suggested monitoring just one or a few indicator species rather than many species (see Selecting good indicators in Decision Point #36). However, the vast literature on selecting indicators usually ignores one of the basic motivations for their use provision of cost-effective information on whether an action is working. Decisions on what to monitor are routinely made ignoring the costs and benefits of alternative choices, and many organisations either end up monitoring everything (wasting lots of money that could be spent on management), or end up doing no monitoring at all (for fear of making the wrong choice).