I guess what I'm thinking of is not necessarily focusing on anything specifically, but thinking of the various forms of remote sensing technologies we have--for example, stations in the Arctic to monitor changes in ozone and sea ice changes, which of course we use satellite technology to determine.
Things that monitor basic elements of the environment in both the aquatic and the terrestrial realm are increasingly, if not almost entirely, being used from a remote sensing perspective. Once you've got those things in place, it doesn't actually cost an extraordinary amount of money to maintain them, but one needs to invest in doing that initially.
Of course it wouldn't just assist a national conservation plan, but that kind of following of what's going on in the environment would assist many other sectors of society as well.