The cost of ad hoc reservation: A case study in western New South Wales

Abstract

Abstract We reviewed the literature on the practice of reservation in Australia over the past few decades. We found that reserves have generally been dedicated for expedient or opportunistic reasons and that they tend to protect the environments with least potential for commercial land uses. Ad hoc reservation has two main disadvantages: the environments most in need of strict reservation are not effectively protected; and natural diversity is represented inefficiently in terms of features per unit reserve area. We demonstrate the second disadvantage with quantitative comparisons of alternative reservation scenarios in the Western Division of New South Wales. These show that a continuation of ad hoc acquisition of reserves will continue to increase the land area needed to represent all natural environments and so reduce the likelihood of achieving a representative reserve system.