Why be wasteful when preserving a valuable resource? A review article on the cost-effectiveness of European biodiversity conservation policy

Issues related to the cost-effectiveness of biodiversity conservation policies have not yet been prominent in European conservation research and policy-making. Nevertheless, there is a small but growing literature which analyses such issues. The article reviews this literature, and focuses on reserves and compensation payments for conservation measures as the two most relevant conservation policy instruments in Europe. Understanding of the cost-effective allocation of conservation measures and reserve sites has improved, and further light will be shed by integrating knowledge from ecology and the economic analysis of policy instruments. Although research on cost-effective monitoring, enforcement and decision-making has addressed certain issues, others very relevant to conservation policy such as implementation problems related to NATURA 2000 have been neglected.