I’m currently attending the Society for Conservation Biology‘s Annual Meeting in Chattanooga, Tennessee, USA and blogging on presentations I think are worth mentioning.
In a surprise shift from the previously planned final plenary talk, Prof. Helene Marsh of James Cook University gave a nice example of how good research can be melded with non-technical opinion to weight threatened species for recovery investment. Using a north Queensland example, she described how technical assessments of relative threat risk combined with weightings from non-technical policy makers can provide the most realistic and relevant conservation investment when used simultaneously. Based on their paper in 2007 (‘Optimizing allocation of management resources for wildlife‘), Prof. Marsh outlined a quantitative approach to meld these decision-making components with real-world outcomes. I’d like to see some of the real outcomes in terms of recovery of north Queensland threatened species, but at least the State appears to be on the right track by using this tool.
ConservationBytes.com 
Hi Corey
now that a couple of years have gone by, it might be worth asking Prof Marsh for her view on how the ‘Back on track’ program (based on her paper mentioned in your blog) was implemented by the state government conservation agency in Queensland.
That is an interesting story – my understanding is that it is not a happy one.
Regards
John K
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