A tool to guide conservation management?

With the limited funding and resources available for conservation there is a need to ensure management action is both efficient and effective. A tool to predict which conservation management action would be most effective and the best areas to implement this action to achieve greater effect would be really useful. Here we aim to assess the feasibility of using bird atlas data and available environmental data to produce an easily implemented tool that could spatially quantify the impact of management decisions on the distribution and abundance of a focal species in a way that would be easily understood by developers and conservation planners.6. These models could prove a valuable tool for targeting conservation management and predicted outcomes of alternative land uses and policies, especially if used in conjunction with wider knowledge of the ecology of those species. However, although useful tools for guiding management, they will not preclude the need for associated monitoring within a reactive management approach.