The CDSS encompasses three components designed to meet the needs of natural resource managers across the region and support the complex decisions they make to protect the region’s natural resources. The first component is a detailed geospatial database housing vast information layers about habitats (e.g. turtle breeding grounds, mangroves, and coral reefs), threats (e.g. tourism, pollution and road construction), and protected areas; the second component is a suite of tools designed to create ‘environmental risk surfaces’ that indicate the level of threat to a particular habitat or species; and the third component is a suite of tools to assess habitat uniqueness across a landscape and facilitate the use of the software MARXAN to create optimal conservation plans based on threat factors and sustainable development scenarios.

The CDSS was used to aid the large-scale biodiversity assessment of the region carried out by The Nature Conservancy that identified a portfolio of conservation areas to concentrate detailed planning and conservation strategies and so sustain the biological diversity of the region. The portfolio represents target biodiversity to quantitative goals in areas least threatened by human impacts that can support populations, ecosystems and ecological processes into the future. Users are encouraged to utilize the CDSS across the region, taking advantage of the flexibility designed into the system to customize the decision-making process by incorporating local knowledge and accommodating local concerns towards natural resource management. It is hoped that collaborative partnerships and further research and monitoring efforts will also be encouraged by the CDSS framework that, in time, will facilitate new and strengthen existing conservation efforts in the region.