Measuring the productivity of threatened-species programs

Expenditures on threatened-species programs are increasing in many countries. Evaluation of the effectiveness and cost efficiency of these programs rarely 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, and Cost–Utility Analysis methodology, are applied to evaluate New Zealand threatened-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 evaluate the productive efficiency of many threatened-species programs.