ON THE ISSUES OF TRIAGE IN CONSERVATION

The process of determining the priority of patients' treatment based on the severity of their condition is termed triage. This principle attempts to ration the treatment of patients efficiently in the midst of insufficient resources for all to be treated immediately. In a conservation context, triage is the considered to be a process of prioritizing the allocation of limited resources to maximize conservation returns in the midst of a constrained budget. This practice requires accounting for the cost, benefits and likelihood of success for such alternative conservation efforts as protection, restoration, pest eradication, education and training. It seems more attention is paid to considering the probability of success and cost, prioritization of conservation efforts for threatened and endangered species than focusing on factors measuring risk of extirpation. This paper provides additional insight to reasons why we should reject triage. It also tried to direct attention to what is essential instead of triage. The kind appeal to the conscience of every conservationist is that extinction should not be considered as imminent as the situation of injured soldiers to battlefield doctors. Thereby, bringing it once more to our minds that the presently threatened species were once abundant, but it took human greedy attitudes to bring them to their present conditions. As such, removal of the threats and with less cost than we suppose, the populations of these species will be restored over time. Let triage principles and practices be triaged among conservationists, and let us deploy our utmost capability to conservation efforts.