Preservation of Species and Genetic Diversity

This article presents a mathematical programming approach to determine a conservation strategy that maximizes preserved species' diversity under limited resource availability. Diversity is defined as the negative of total diversity loss given by the sum of genetic distances between extinct species and their closest surviving relatives. The model incorporates both species richness and genetic diversity as the conservation criteria when determining species preservation and site selection decisions. The article also presents two empirical applications to the conservation of 15 crane species and 208 genera including most of the endangered or threatened North American bird species. Copyright 2003 American Agricultural Economics Association.