SEMINAR: Importance of accounting for private benefits and increasing opportunity costs in planning ecological restoration.

Conservation projects implemented on private land often generate both public and private benefits. Private benefits are important determinants of cost-effectiveness, success, and adoption of such projects. However, they have not been adequately considered in ecological restoration planning and prioritisation. Another important issue lacking due attention in the restoration planning literature is variability of opportunity costs. Specifically, when restoration is implemented on private land, opportunity cost increases as landholder allocates more land to restoration. In this study, we analyse how consideration of private benefits and assumption of increasing marginal opportunity costs of land impact the outcomes of prioritising ecological restoration. We use a case study in north-central Victoria and employ a spatially explicit bio-economic model that maximises ecological benefits by selecting revegetation sites subject to a set of budgets. We observed that the scenario with increasing marginal opportunity costs that accounts for private benefits (i) gives a better biodiversity outcome, and (ii) results in a spatial pattern of ecological restoration shifting towards smaller properties. To avoid providing misleading recommendations to environmental managers about spatial targeting ecological restoration on private lands, it is important to take into account both private benefits captured by the landholders and increasing opportunity costs of securing land.