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Abstract
The conservation of biological diversity is seen as a national and an international issue of
importance to Australians. This is indicated by Australia's decision to sign the Convention
on Biological Diversity. However, without significant policy change to funding levels and
the types of conservation mechanisms used1 biological diversity values are likely to be
conserved at a less than the socially optimal level implied by Australia,s ratification of the
convention.
Traditional approaches to meeting conservation targets have been via land acquisition and
management by government, future approaches may need to include off-reserve
conservation mechanisms that use a variety of economic instruments. This paper
combines economic and geographical information system techniques to estimate the cost
of expanding the NS\V protected area network to a range of target levels with on and off reserve
mechanisms. An algorithm was developed to select areas to complement the
existing conservation system and be representative of 124 environmental domain
classifications. To ensure cost effectiveness, target representation levels were achieved by
selection of areas in a priority order based on land use.
Results indicate that land acquisition costs of achieving a 10% level of environmental
region representation in NSW are not prohibitive, in fact they may equate to something
like the purchase cost of four or five F-18 fighter jets. Acquisition costs of raising the area
representation of each of the defined environmental domains to 10% is estimated at $360
million. However, ongoing setup and management costs to control threats to loss of
biodiversity values represent a much stronger pull on the government purse.