The decision maker’s dilemma, choosing between competing priorities

This paper is motivated by the observation that there is a difference between the time paths of damage valuations for invasions which affect agricultural compared with environmental systems. In particular, unlike agricultural systems, social valuation of an environmental system is likely to be
exponentially positively related to the extent of its deterioration.

This paper explores the implications of this difference in determining biosecurity investment priorities where criteria for decision-making are relatively narrow. It is concluded that because of this difference an environmental system will often not be prioritised for such protection over an agricultural system even though its ultimate social value exceeds that of the agricultural system. For this reason a broader set of decision criteria are needed that enable decisionmakers to learn more about the context of biosecurity investment decisions.