Optimal restoration of altered habitats

We describe a new conservation decision support tool: ‘Optimal Restoration of Altered Habitats’ (OPRAH). OPRAH combines species landscape configuration preferences and habitat quality information to optimally select habitat restoration priorities for single or multiple species. OPRAH uses a simulated annealing algorithm and information about extant native vegetation, land use and rehabilitation costs, to find solutions to non-linear landscape-scale problems. The landscape is divided into planning units, some of which represent native vegetation, while others can be restored for a given budget. A habitat restoration problem for declining woodland bird species is demonstrated as a case study.