Are investments to remove the barriers that cause habitat fragmentation – one of the biggest drivers of decline in biodiversity and valuable ecosystem services, maximising their potential return? <\/p>\n
We know that habitat fragmentation is one of the biggest drivers of decline in biodiversity and valuable ecosystem services. The migration of fish within rivers is particularly vulnerable to disruption by a combination of man-made dams and road crossings. Investments to remove these barriers are growing but are they maximising their potential return?<\/p>\n
Dr Jesse O\u2019Hanley and his co-authors find that restoring aquatic ecosystem connectivity in the Laurentian Great Lakes in North America is a staggering nine times more cost-effective if barrier removals are co-ordinated across the entire basin rather than optimised independently for each local watershed. Moreover, aggregating investments as a one-time pulse is as much as ten times more efficient than annual allocations of the same amount. Pooling investment raises the threshold for project cost-effectiveness and also means that high-cost yet high-return projects become affordable.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Neeson, T. M., Ferris, M. C., Diebel, M. W., Doran, P. J., O\u2019Hanley, J. R., and McIntyre, P. B. 2015. Enhancing ecosystem restoration efficiency through spatial and temporal coordination. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 112(19), 6236-6241. http:\/\/dx.doi.org\/10.1073\/pnas.1423812112<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"