Measuring the productivity of threatened-species programs

Expenditures on threatened-species programs are increasing in many countrie s. Evaluation of the effectiveness and cost efficiency of these programs ra rely occurs. An obstacle to evaluation of these programs is the need for a versatile unit of output. This paper reports how an output measure, COPY, a nd Cost-Utility Analysis methodology, are applied to evaluate New Zealand t hreatened-species programs. Program effectiveness, cost, and cost - utility ratios are presented, and the results show wide divergences occur between the programs studied. Cost-utility analysis provides a practical means to e valuate the productive efficiency of many threatened-species programs. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.