Designing and implementing conservation tender metrics: Twelve core considerations

- Conservation tender metrics describe relative values from alternative investments.
- Twelve lessons are identified to guide researchers and practitioners in metric design.
- Four example tenders illustrate tradeoffs in practical implementation.
- The lessons support improved PES and conservation tender efficiency.

In conservation tenders metrics are intended to describe the values that would result from alternate investments; they are the linkage between individual on-ground projects and tender scheme proponents. These metrics have received little attention by economists yet are the critical linchpin that defines the nature of the values that are traded in markets. In this paper we identify twelve lessons that can guide practitioners in metric design. These lessons embrace the principal biophysical changes likely to result from management change at each site and in combination, and reflect the values that society places on the outcomes from these changes. Practical application is explored through four example tenders encompassing five metrics which demonstrate substantial variation from the lessons identified. The practical consequences for cost-efficiency of investment, and for the use of conservation tenders generally, are unclear because of the practical and political difficulties in developing effective conservation tender approaches.