Nature conservation can be a costly business and in a conservation-conscious country like New Zealand with many fragile ecosystems and endangered species the issue of setting priorities and allocating resources is a big one.
Fortunately there’s a branch of economics that can help the situation and it’s a specialty field for the Deputy Director of Lincoln University’s Commerce Division, Professor Ross Cullen.
Professor Cullen is Professor of Resource Economics and finding ways of using conservation funding to maximum effect is one of his major research interests.
Resource Economics can make a valuable contribution to the quality of conservation spending through the application of economic analysis, he says.
In particular Cost Effective Analysis (CEA) and Cost Utility Analysis (CUA) can offer much to conservation decision-makers.
Using CUA it is possible to measure the cost of an activity, such as a species recovery project, assess the biophysical payoffs and compare these to the outcome that would have occurred if the activity did not take place.
CUA has been developed to measure the success and cost effectiveness of conservation projects targeting both single and multiple species.
The application of Resource Economics to conservation is an appropriate activity in a university like Lincoln with its strong focus on the environment and postgraduate students in particular can get involved in the work.
In addition to his conservation focus, Professor Cullen is a leader of FRST-funded research into the value of ecosystem services in agriculture. Ecosystem services or “nature’s services” (eg. the activity of earthworms, the pollination activity of insects, natural mulching, natural pest control through natural predators, and so on) are now widely recognised as a key component of agricultural productivity.