Flexibility, efficiency, and accountability: adapting reserve selection algorithms to more complex conservation problems

Flexibility, efficiency and accountability are considered key attributes of good reserve selection methods. Flexibility, the ability to incorporate all the diversity of considerations, concerns and information that typically impinge on real conservation problems, is fundamental if the particulars of any given situation are to be addressed and land use conflicts are to be effectively resolved. High efficiency, the representation of the maximum diversity of the relevant Features (e.g. species) at the minimum cost, is important because reserves will commonly be in direct competition with other forms of land use. Accountability means that the solutions are obtained in a transparent way, allowing others to understand why and how the result was arrived at. Because of the robustness of the general integer linear model, a remarkably rich variety of problems concerning the management and efficient use of scarce resources can be represented as problems of this type. This study starts by analysing a simple representation problem and then develops more general problems that can be applied to a variety of conservation planning exercises. It is illustrated how high flexibility can be attained, while simultaneously addressing efficiency and accountability, by modelling reserve selection questions as integer linear problems.