Imagine that you are the Executive Director of a non-profit conservation group named the Pangaea Conservancy, which has a budget of $10 million to purchase land from private landowners so that these lands can be permanently protected. The six parcels available for purchase are shown in light gray in the figure below, labeled A-F. Pangaea already has two protected national parks, which are shown in this figure as dark gray areas. Ecologists and conservation professionals from the Pangaea Conservancy have evaluated each of the available parcels and assigned each with a parcel-specific ecological benefit score, as shown in the table below, where a higher score indicates a higher ecological benefit. As the Executive Director, which parcels would you recommend that the Pangaea Conservancy acquire? Why?
|
Parcel ID
|
Ecological Score
|
Cost ($m)
|
|
A
|
2
|
$6
|
|
B
|
5
|
$3
|
|
C
|
4
|
$2
|
|
D
|
6
|
$6
|
|
E
|
2
|
$3
|
|
F
|
9
|
$4
|