Smart decisions for the environment
Kerrie Wilson
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
ARC Centre of Excellence for Environmental Decisions, The University of Queensland, St Lucia, Qld 4072, Australia. Email: k.wilson2@uq.edu.au
Pacific Conservation Biology 24(3) 251-255 https://doi.org/10.1071/PC18036
Submitted: 22 March 2018 Accepted: 20 May 2018 Published: 21 June 2018
Abstract
People that are involved in managing natural environments face the challenge of achieving conservation goals with limited funds, and also of balancing needs for nature conservation with competing demands from society. This context has been a motivation for much of my research over the past 12 years, and I will share my career story with you as part of this paper. I will also describe progress we have made developing methods for prioritising where, when, and how to invest funds for protecting biodiversity. Progress in the field of ecosystem services, combined with progress in prioritisation, has been a key driver of the shift in opinion that conservation investments should be influenced by biodiversity values alone. I will outline examples of the development and application of applied techniques to systematically evaluate the impact of environmental actions, a field that has lagged significantly. The overall impact of my body of research has been to reveal that through smarter investment, significant public and private funds could be saved and far greater benefits for biodiversity and society could be achieved. I finish with some insights into how we can improve the future for women in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM).
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