Is it worth saving pandas?

Conservation has limited resources, and so pragmatic choices need to be made. No one  would ever want to hear of any species getting extincted, especially if the species involved are well known, and loved, by the public, but it could result to be necessary.


Those species are indeed very expensive to keep going, and most of the resources in this area are used toward them and a few others, while the best thing to do could be to preserve biodiversity hotspots. If habitat are not preserved, there's no point in talking about preserving biodiversity. So if we all the cash were not spent on those famous species but were used, for example, to buy rainforest, biodiversity might get greater benefits.

On the other hand megafauna like pandas and tigers appeal to people's emotional side, and attract a lot of attention, raising the possibility of higher money resources. It can lead to a media phenomena called single-species conservation. Those kind of advertising began in the seventies with Save the Tiger, Save the Panda, Save the Whale, and so on, but maybe this era has come to an end.


Nevertheless many species that could be "worth saving" live in a narrowly defined habitat. This mean that they don't need a big habitat to live in, and so the protected area would be restricted. In conservation terms is therefore better to try to protect the species that live at higher levels in the food web. Thus conservation will be extended to all the other species related to the protected one. 


Furthermore protecting those species  will require  the conservation of larger habitats, than the one required by "lower" species. Megafauna could hence be used as media vehicle for the habitat conservation. There are things you pull out from the picture because people can relate to them. And it does make a difference.