Sir

Biodiversity hotspots have been useful tools in prioritization, particularly in identification of critical gaps in protected areas. The analysis of avian hotspots cited in your News Feature “Dollars and sense” (Nature 437, 614–616; 2005) did not find them ineffective, but recognized that hotspots based on different taxa or indices are not necessarily congruent and a synthetic approach is required.

Although, as your News Feature suggests, more attention needs to be paid to preserving ecosystem function, we are facing a biodiversity crisis. Neither ecosystem function nor hotspots should be the sole focus of conservation efforts: we need both. Arguing the economic perspective may be a good approach to lobbying, but it is not a replacement for urgent, targeted action.

Conservation efforts also require evaluation: audits require detailed appraisal, in addition to any reporting required by donors. Large conservation organizations can fulfil these criteria relatively easily, but most conservation practitioners are small scale, depending on volunteers, drawing on very limited funds and lacking spare capacity to permit such audit. Limited audit would provide a certain amount of information, but only from the most easily reviewed and most positive cases.

For conservation efforts to be maximally useful, failures must be reported as candidly as successes.

The real gap lies not so much in analysis but in reporting: we need journal editors to take a broader view of what is of interest to a wide readership and to consider more case studies, even when these are not ‘groundbreaking’. Publication of results needs to be brought into the mainstream. This requires a major editorial change, allowing a shift away from the current domination of analysis and theory, to reporting of real conservation science.