Government conservation measures will always depend on public support. While more has been learnt about which species the public values and which conservation measures are socially acceptable, less is known about the criteria that the public thinks government should consider when making conservation investment decisions. This study uses a stated preference best–worst scaling method to gauge the views of a sample of the Australian public on what they think government should consider when allocating funding to threatened species conservation. We found that the three most important factors were the risk that a species might become extinct, the likelihood that a conservation intervention might be effective and the risk of unintended consequences for other species that could potentially arise if the measure was implemented. Costs of conservation measures and the degree to which the society accepts these costs were considered much less important. The latter aspect was consistent with the high level of trust that respondents placed in the judgement of experts and scientists concerning threatened species conservation. We conclude that the Australian Government has a societal mandate to spend more money on threatened species conservation, provided that there is little risk and that it is backed up by science.

政府的保护措施总是取决于公众的支持。虽然人们对公众重视哪些物种以及社会可以接受哪些保护措施有了更多的了解，但对公众认为政府在做出保护投资决策时应该考虑的标准知之甚少。本研究使用既定偏好最佳-最差缩放方法来衡量澳大利亚公众样本对他们认为政府在为受威胁物种保护分配资金时应考虑的因素的看法。我们发现三个最重要的因素是一个物种可能灭绝的风险、保护干预措施可能有效的可能性以及如果实施该措施可能对其他物种造成意外后果的风险。保护措施的成本和社会接受这些成本的程度被认为不那么重要。后者与受访者对专家和科学家对受威胁物种保护的判断的高度信任是一致的。我们得出的结论是，澳大利亚政府有社会责任在受威胁物种保护上投入更多资金，前提是风险很小并且有科学依据。