Does a voluntary conservation program result in a representative protected area network?

Our results showed that the participation in the TNV program was large enough to meet the ecological goals, because the offered targets uncovered only two of the 73 surveyed species, and the cost-effective conservation network included only a few targets that were not offered in the pilot program. However, the contract allocation method used in the TNV could be improved, because many ecologically valuable targets that were offered to the program were not accepted. In general, it could be justified to survey some indicator species, which would be relatively easy to identify, to maximize species coverage in contract allocation. Surveying indicator species causes some extra costs, but these are likely to be minor compared with the costs savings in opportunity costs, due to the improved targeting of protected areas.