In this chapter we explore the potential role of knowledge management in the development of envir... more In this chapter we explore the potential role of knowledge management in the development of environmental policy. we apply the seven c's knowledge management model in the context of a very complex policy-making scenario, namely the potential eradication of the red fox in tasmania. this endeavour needed to integrate science, community, government and other stakeholders to design and implement effective policy and we shall argue that adopting a knowledge management approach might have helped to integrate the stakeholders and improve outcomes. first, we outline the case study, identifying some of the critical challenges to policy development and implementation. second, we identify why knowledge management needs to be more overtly considered in the role of policy making and the value of the seven c's model in revealing where integration could usefully be used to improve outcomes. third, we present a framework for analysing context that enables a systematic analysis of our case study. fourth, we link the knowledge management model and the contextual framework together and apply them to the policy-making example. lastly, we consider the lessons learned and how knowledge management and systematic contextual analysis can add value to the policy-making process.
ABSTRACT Market-based instruments (MBIs) are rapidly becoming a dominant characteristic of the po... more ABSTRACT Market-based instruments (MBIs) are rapidly becoming a dominant characteristic of the policy landscape for private land conservation in Australia and elsewhere. Price-based MBIs are considered attractive to landholders, who are provided with financial payments for the delivery of defined ecological outcomes on their land, and for policy-making, where ecological return on investment can be measured quantitatively. Consequently, MBIs are commonly used to promote competitive, individualized approaches to improve ecological values, framed around the property-scale. We are concerned that there is a tension between the property-centric focus of price-based MBI programs and the need for environmental management policy and practice to reflect landscape-scale social-ecological processes. Targeting MBI programs at individual properties could risk generating insufficient public good conservation benefits, if those programs fail to reflect the relationship between landscape-scale processes and property-scale conservation efforts. To remedy the neglect of the landscape scale in private land conservation MBI policy, we develop a definition of stewardship that directly connects landscape-scale ecological function to the ‘public good’ dimension of stewardship. We apply this over-arching definition to demonstrate how MBI programs can deliver on the goal of landscape-scale conservation, and to suggest when MBIs might not be well suited to achieving private land conservation objectives.
Co-management has gained significant traction in small-scale fisheries as part of the solution fo... more Co-management has gained significant traction in small-scale fisheries as part of the solution for resolving economic inefficiency, unsustainable harvesting and unequal distribution of benefits derived from fisheries, generating some promising results. Most studies, however, present co-management as the sharing of power between resource users and centralised government, and do not explicitly consider the role of a more diverse set of stakeholders, or what roles different stakeholder types are best positioned to perform. This paper contributes to our understanding of stakeholder diversity by determining, through surveys with 133 fishery stakeholders in Solomon Islands, which stakeholder types are perceived as most suited to particular co-management roles, and which stakeholder types should be collaborating to increase fishery stocks. The effect of respondent socio-demographics, on perceived roles, is tested to explore the value of the role typology. Ten dominant roles were identified across seven stakeholder types, including collaboration and raising awareness, which were perceived to be dominantly the domain of auxiliary stakeholders that are not explicitly recognised in the comanagement literature, including NGOs and church leaders. Of the socio-demographic variables tested, only site explained some of the variation in stakeholder roles perceived by respondents. The primary value of the typology lies in its potential to be used as a basis for dialogue on strengths and weaknesses of allocated roles for increasing fish stocks in existing co-management systems.
Natural scientists are increasingly interested in social research because they recognize that con... more Natural scientists are increasingly interested in social research because they recognize that conservation problems are commonly social problems. Interpreting social research, however, requires at least a basic understanding of the philosophical principles and theoretical assumptions of the discipline, which are embedded in the design of social research. Natural scientists who engage in social science but are unfamiliar with these principles and assumptions can misinterpret their results. We developed a guide to assist natural scientists in understanding the philosophical basis of social science to support the meaningful interpretation of social research outcomes. The 3 fundamental elements of research are ontology, what exists in the human world that researchers can acquire knowledge about; epistemology, how knowledge is created; and philosophical perspective, the philosophical orientation of the researcher that guides her or his action. Many elements of the guide also apply to the natural sciences. Natural scientists can use the guide to assist them in interpreting social science research to determine how the ontological position of the researcher can influence the nature of the research; how the epistemological position can be used to support the legitimacy of different types of knowledge; and how philosophical perspective can shape the researcher's choice of methods and affect interpretation, communication, and application of results. The use of this guide can also support and promote the effective integration of the natural and social sciences to generate more insightful and relevant conservation research outcomes.
Handbook of Research on Knowledge Management, 2014
In this chapter we explore the potential role of knowledge management in the development of envir... more In this chapter we explore the potential role of knowledge management in the development of environmental policy. we apply the seven c's knowledge management model in the context of a very complex policy-making scenario, namely the potential eradication of the red fox in tasmania. this endeavour needed to integrate science, community, government and other stakeholders to design and implement effective policy and we shall argue that adopting a knowledge management approach might have helped to integrate the stakeholders and improve outcomes. first, we outline the case study, identifying some of the critical challenges to policy development and implementation. second, we identify why knowledge management needs to be more overtly considered in the role of policy making and the value of the seven c's model in revealing where integration could usefully be used to improve outcomes. third, we present a framework for analysing context that enables a systematic analysis of our case study. fourth, we link the knowledge management model and the contextual framework together and apply them to the policy-making example. lastly, we consider the lessons learned and how knowledge management and systematic contextual analysis can add value to the policy-making process.
An opportunity represents an advantageous combination of circumstances that allows goals to be ac... more An opportunity represents an advantageous combination of circumstances that allows goals to be achieved. We reviewed the nature of opportunity and how it manifests in different subsystems (e.g., biophysical, social, political, economic) as conceptualized in other bodies of literature, including behavior, adoption, entrepreneur, public policy, and resilience literature. We then developed a multidisciplinary conceptualization of conservation opportunity. We identified 3 types of conservation opportunity: potential, actors remove barriers to problem solving by identifying the capabilities within the system that can be manipulated to create support for conservation action; traction, actors identify windows of opportunity that arise from exogenous shocks, events, or changes that remove barriers to solving problems; and existing, everything is in place for conservation action (i.e., no barriers exist) and an actor takes advantage of the existing circumstances to solve problems. Different leverage points characterize each type of opportunity. Thus, unique stages of opportunity identification or creation and exploitation exist: characterizing the system and defining problems; identifying potential solutions; assessing the feasibility of solutions; identifying or creating opportunities; and taking advantage of opportunities. These stages can be undertaken independently or as part of a situational analysis and typically comprise the first stage, but they can also be conducted iteratively throughout a conservation planning process. Four types of entrepreneur can be identified (business, policy, social, and conservation), each possessing attributes that enable them to identify or create opportunities and take advantage of them. We examined how different types of conservation opportunity manifest in a social-ecological system (the Great Barrier Reef) and how they can be taken advantage of. Our multidisciplinary conceptualization of conservation opportunity strengthens and legitimizes the concept.
Most successful control or eradication
programs have been implemented in uninhabited
regions, w... more Most successful control or eradication
programs have been implemented in uninhabited
regions, where little or no consideration of sociopolitical
factors has been required. A considerable
challenge for invasion scientists and decision-makers
lies in controlling and eradicating species from
inhabited regions, where challenges related to community
stakeholder perceptions of the need to act,
animal rights and uncertainty surrounding the presence
and abundance of invasive species can threaten
program development and implementation. We interviewed
senior policy advisors and scientists who
developed and implemented European red fox
eradication policies on the inhabited island state of
Tasmania, Australia. Our aim was to understand how
they perceived that scientific evidence and community
stakeholders’ knowledge and preferences should be
involved in developing and implementing policy for
fox detection and eradication. Respondents perceived
that scientific evidence was best used in determining
the need to act, assessing risks, designing eradication
operations and monitoring progress. Overall, they
perceived that involving community stakeholders was
important in creating socially acceptable eradication
operations that enable access to private land to
implement eradication options. Community stakeholders’
knowledge was perceived, largely by scientists,
to be based on misinformation, misconceptions
and mistrust in science and, therefore, of limited value
in informing policy. Community stakeholders were
therefore not viewed as equal partners in the policymaking
process by scientists. Only those stakeholders
who performed a clear function were considered
valuable. We propose that increased likelihood of
successful eradication of invasive species from inhabited
areas can be achieved by using a functional
approach to stakeholder inclusion, to prevent dissent
and conflict by legitimizing varied knowledge and
capacity, leading to co-production of knowledge
within a co-management governance system.
"The food industry is vulnerable to climate change. Producers will need to adapt to climate chang... more "The food industry is vulnerable to climate change. Producers will need to adapt to climate change if they, and the communities dependent on them, are to remain viable. There are essentially two ways to adapt—incrementally and transformationally. We differentiate between incremental and transformative adaptation mostly on the basis of the size of the change needed. Here, we studied the Australian peanut industry, which is already experiencing the effects of climate change. We expand on the notion of adaptive capacity and refer to ‘transformational capacity’ and test its association with resource dependency. Resource dependency is a measure of the interactions that primary producers have with a natural resource and includes factors such as occupational identity, networks, resource use as well as a range of financial factors. We hypothesized that some primary producers were more likely to demonstrate higher levels of transformational capacity if they possessed lower levels of resource dependency. We surveyed, by phone, 69 farmers representing 87 % of the peanut industry in northern Australia. Our results show that the capacity to transform depends upon individual's networks, their employability, tendency for strategic thinking and planning, business profitability, local knowledge, environmental awareness, use of irrigation and use of climate technology. Barriers to transformational change were occupational identity, place attachment and dependents. Our study is one of the first to focus on transformational capacity. This approach allows us to understand why some individuals are better able to adapt to change than others and also to assist industry and community leaders to develop broad-scale strategies."
"The prevalence of private property in most western countries places the responsibility for biodi... more "The prevalence of private property in most western countries places the responsibility for biodiversity conservation in the hands of hundreds of millions of individuals. To preserve the remaining biodiversity on private land, many conservation policies and programs have been deployed. These policies and programs, however, have largely failed, due to a lack of understanding landholders’ social characteristics, which influence their capacity and willingness to participate in conservation programs and adopt conservation practices.
Innovation-adoption theory explains how, why and at what rate innovations are adopted. I used this theory to conceptualise landholder participation in conservation programs because it offers an approach to increase our understanding of the motivations and barriers to participation. Advancements in our knowledge of landholder behaviour can improve the design of conservation programs through more informed choices of policy instruments that assist government and non-government agencies in achieving their conservation policy goals. Currently, our knowledge of the linkages between landholders’ social characteristics and their preferences for policy instruments remains inconclusive.
The overall aim of this research was to contribute to our understanding of how the social characteristics of landholders influence their conservation behaviour, in support of the improved use of policy instruments. Specifically, the objectives of this research were to understand: 1) how social characteristics differed between landholders who had participated in one of three conservation programs; 2) what motivated and limited the involvement of participants; 3) how the social characteristics of conservation program participants and non-participants differed; 4) why some landholders chose not to participate in conservation programs; and 5) how conservation programs could be designed to enlist landholders who may otherwise not participate. To satisfy these research objectives, I designed a revealed preference study to examine landholders’ ‘actual’ preferences for policy instruments. Three north Queensland conservation programs were selected that each employed different policy instruments: the voluntary Queensland Government Nature Refuge Program; the direct-payment Cassowary Coast Rate Deferral Scheme; and the market-based Desert Uplands Landscape Linkages Program. Each program required participants to enter into a conservation agreement or covenant.
Invitations were sent to 58 participants in the three programs. In total, 45 conservation program participants were interviewed between February and June 2009. Twenty-nine landholders who had not participated in one of these programs (non-participants), but who may otherwise have qualified for the program, were recruited, using snowball sampling, and interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were used to administer a survey that comprised both closed and open response questions. Chi-square and randomization tests were used to analyse quantitative data; the discourse analysis methods of grounded theory were used to analyse qualitative data.
The results revealed that landholders’ dominant land use (production or non-production) influenced their preference for policy instruments. Production landholders used the land to derive an income from production-related activities, worked longer hours on their properties and experienced higher levels of stress related to their lifestyle. They were more likely to participate in short-term programs that offered large financial incentives, and conserved less than 25% of their property. Non-production landholders, who did not derive an income from production-related activities, demonstrated stronger personal norms and environmental attitudes regarding their role in conservation, and were more likely to participate in long-term programs that were voluntary or offered small financial incentives, and conserved more than 75% of their property.
I used qualitative data to understand landholders’ relative commitment to biodiversity conservation. Overall, landholders were motivated to participate in conservation programs by conservation, production, financial and experimentally-based imperatives. Production landholders represented all four motivations, while non-production landholders were only motivated by conservation or financial imperatives. These motivations, along with landholders’ perspectives of the landscape (i.e., whether the land could be used for only production or conservation [uni-functional] or both [multifunctional]), influenced how they selected what land they would allocate to conservation. In some instances, these choices resulted in no additional gain beyond what would have occurred from ‘business as usual’, or actually represented a threat to biodiversity.
Comparisons between program participants and non-participants revealed that non-participants had significantly lower levels of human and social capital than participants, in four of the eight dimensions assessed: lifestyle and wellbeing, information and knowledge, environmental attitudes, and trust. Significant differences were not observed for four other dimensions that were measured. Higher levels of pre-existing capital increased the likelihood of landholder participation in conservation programs; lower levels of human capital reduced the likelihood of participation.
Qualitative data were used to understand context-specific reasons for non-participation. Two major barriers to participation existed. First, non-participants believed that the programs did not fit with their personal needs or align with their land management goals and obligations, and were not sufficiently practical or flexible. They feared participation would have directly or indirectly infringed upon their property rights and compromised the economic value of their property. Second, non-participants harboured a deep mistrust of previous and current governments, which represented an impermeable barrier to participation. For some respondents, participation was conditional on the fit between their property goals and both the characteristics of the program and the mandate of the program administrator (i.e., conditional non-participants). For other respondents, these barriers completely inhibited their willingness to participate (resistant non-participants). Non-participants believed that program administrators’ commitment to political goals, implicit in program design, confounded the relevance of conservation programs to their personal needs and property conditions.
These findings make an important contribution to private land conservation policy. Landholders presented as a heterogeneous group of individuals whose participation in conservation programs was defined largely by their reliance on the land for income, landscape perspective, human and social capital, trust in the program administrator, and the politico-historical context. These factors influenced landholders’ capacity and willingness to participate in conservation programs, their preference for policy instruments, and how they selected land to conserve, which suggest that it is no longer necessary to understand adoption of innovation as occurring along a continuum based only on socio-psychological factors. These findings should be used to improve the use of policy instruments in conservation program design so they can genuinely preserve biodiversity on the private land to which they are targeted.
"
"Private land conservation is becoming a popular policy approach, given the constraints of increa... more "Private land conservation is becoming a popular policy approach, given the constraints of increasing public protected areas, which include reduced availability of land for purchase, insufficient budgets for acquisition, and escalating management costs of small, isolated reserves. Conservation covenants represent a common policy instrument, now prominent in the United States, Canada and Australia, employed to compliment the protected area network. When ‘topsoil’ and subsoil, or ‘mineral’ use rights are decoupled,
however, the security of covenants can become threatened if the country’s economic policies take priority over conservation policies and mining is permitted where covenants exist. We discuss this issue on a theoretical level, examining four potential scenarios in which use rights are decoupled or coupled. We demonstrate that decoupled use rights can create an imbalance in the costs and benefits, to landholders and the government, from conservation and mining activities on private properties. We then present a case study in Queensland, Australia, in which the discrepancy of biodiversity and mining policies is directly threatening the ecological outcomes of conservation covenants on private land. We also reflect on our own personal research with landholders in Queensland to highlight the social consequences of
such a policy position on the ability of State and Federal governments to meet their policy commitments. The conflicts we identify can be used to improve the transparency of private land conservation."
In this chapter we explore the potential role of knowledge management in the development of envir... more In this chapter we explore the potential role of knowledge management in the development of environmental policy. we apply the seven c's knowledge management model in the context of a very complex policy-making scenario, namely the potential eradication of the red fox in tasmania. this endeavour needed to integrate science, community, government and other stakeholders to design and implement effective policy and we shall argue that adopting a knowledge management approach might have helped to integrate the stakeholders and improve outcomes. first, we outline the case study, identifying some of the critical challenges to policy development and implementation. second, we identify why knowledge management needs to be more overtly considered in the role of policy making and the value of the seven c's model in revealing where integration could usefully be used to improve outcomes. third, we present a framework for analysing context that enables a systematic analysis of our case study. fourth, we link the knowledge management model and the contextual framework together and apply them to the policy-making example. lastly, we consider the lessons learned and how knowledge management and systematic contextual analysis can add value to the policy-making process.
ABSTRACT Market-based instruments (MBIs) are rapidly becoming a dominant characteristic of the po... more ABSTRACT Market-based instruments (MBIs) are rapidly becoming a dominant characteristic of the policy landscape for private land conservation in Australia and elsewhere. Price-based MBIs are considered attractive to landholders, who are provided with financial payments for the delivery of defined ecological outcomes on their land, and for policy-making, where ecological return on investment can be measured quantitatively. Consequently, MBIs are commonly used to promote competitive, individualized approaches to improve ecological values, framed around the property-scale. We are concerned that there is a tension between the property-centric focus of price-based MBI programs and the need for environmental management policy and practice to reflect landscape-scale social-ecological processes. Targeting MBI programs at individual properties could risk generating insufficient public good conservation benefits, if those programs fail to reflect the relationship between landscape-scale processes and property-scale conservation efforts. To remedy the neglect of the landscape scale in private land conservation MBI policy, we develop a definition of stewardship that directly connects landscape-scale ecological function to the ‘public good’ dimension of stewardship. We apply this over-arching definition to demonstrate how MBI programs can deliver on the goal of landscape-scale conservation, and to suggest when MBIs might not be well suited to achieving private land conservation objectives.
Co-management has gained significant traction in small-scale fisheries as part of the solution fo... more Co-management has gained significant traction in small-scale fisheries as part of the solution for resolving economic inefficiency, unsustainable harvesting and unequal distribution of benefits derived from fisheries, generating some promising results. Most studies, however, present co-management as the sharing of power between resource users and centralised government, and do not explicitly consider the role of a more diverse set of stakeholders, or what roles different stakeholder types are best positioned to perform. This paper contributes to our understanding of stakeholder diversity by determining, through surveys with 133 fishery stakeholders in Solomon Islands, which stakeholder types are perceived as most suited to particular co-management roles, and which stakeholder types should be collaborating to increase fishery stocks. The effect of respondent socio-demographics, on perceived roles, is tested to explore the value of the role typology. Ten dominant roles were identified across seven stakeholder types, including collaboration and raising awareness, which were perceived to be dominantly the domain of auxiliary stakeholders that are not explicitly recognised in the comanagement literature, including NGOs and church leaders. Of the socio-demographic variables tested, only site explained some of the variation in stakeholder roles perceived by respondents. The primary value of the typology lies in its potential to be used as a basis for dialogue on strengths and weaknesses of allocated roles for increasing fish stocks in existing co-management systems.
Natural scientists are increasingly interested in social research because they recognize that con... more Natural scientists are increasingly interested in social research because they recognize that conservation problems are commonly social problems. Interpreting social research, however, requires at least a basic understanding of the philosophical principles and theoretical assumptions of the discipline, which are embedded in the design of social research. Natural scientists who engage in social science but are unfamiliar with these principles and assumptions can misinterpret their results. We developed a guide to assist natural scientists in understanding the philosophical basis of social science to support the meaningful interpretation of social research outcomes. The 3 fundamental elements of research are ontology, what exists in the human world that researchers can acquire knowledge about; epistemology, how knowledge is created; and philosophical perspective, the philosophical orientation of the researcher that guides her or his action. Many elements of the guide also apply to the natural sciences. Natural scientists can use the guide to assist them in interpreting social science research to determine how the ontological position of the researcher can influence the nature of the research; how the epistemological position can be used to support the legitimacy of different types of knowledge; and how philosophical perspective can shape the researcher's choice of methods and affect interpretation, communication, and application of results. The use of this guide can also support and promote the effective integration of the natural and social sciences to generate more insightful and relevant conservation research outcomes.
Handbook of Research on Knowledge Management, 2014
In this chapter we explore the potential role of knowledge management in the development of envir... more In this chapter we explore the potential role of knowledge management in the development of environmental policy. we apply the seven c's knowledge management model in the context of a very complex policy-making scenario, namely the potential eradication of the red fox in tasmania. this endeavour needed to integrate science, community, government and other stakeholders to design and implement effective policy and we shall argue that adopting a knowledge management approach might have helped to integrate the stakeholders and improve outcomes. first, we outline the case study, identifying some of the critical challenges to policy development and implementation. second, we identify why knowledge management needs to be more overtly considered in the role of policy making and the value of the seven c's model in revealing where integration could usefully be used to improve outcomes. third, we present a framework for analysing context that enables a systematic analysis of our case study. fourth, we link the knowledge management model and the contextual framework together and apply them to the policy-making example. lastly, we consider the lessons learned and how knowledge management and systematic contextual analysis can add value to the policy-making process.
An opportunity represents an advantageous combination of circumstances that allows goals to be ac... more An opportunity represents an advantageous combination of circumstances that allows goals to be achieved. We reviewed the nature of opportunity and how it manifests in different subsystems (e.g., biophysical, social, political, economic) as conceptualized in other bodies of literature, including behavior, adoption, entrepreneur, public policy, and resilience literature. We then developed a multidisciplinary conceptualization of conservation opportunity. We identified 3 types of conservation opportunity: potential, actors remove barriers to problem solving by identifying the capabilities within the system that can be manipulated to create support for conservation action; traction, actors identify windows of opportunity that arise from exogenous shocks, events, or changes that remove barriers to solving problems; and existing, everything is in place for conservation action (i.e., no barriers exist) and an actor takes advantage of the existing circumstances to solve problems. Different leverage points characterize each type of opportunity. Thus, unique stages of opportunity identification or creation and exploitation exist: characterizing the system and defining problems; identifying potential solutions; assessing the feasibility of solutions; identifying or creating opportunities; and taking advantage of opportunities. These stages can be undertaken independently or as part of a situational analysis and typically comprise the first stage, but they can also be conducted iteratively throughout a conservation planning process. Four types of entrepreneur can be identified (business, policy, social, and conservation), each possessing attributes that enable them to identify or create opportunities and take advantage of them. We examined how different types of conservation opportunity manifest in a social-ecological system (the Great Barrier Reef) and how they can be taken advantage of. Our multidisciplinary conceptualization of conservation opportunity strengthens and legitimizes the concept.
Most successful control or eradication
programs have been implemented in uninhabited
regions, w... more Most successful control or eradication
programs have been implemented in uninhabited
regions, where little or no consideration of sociopolitical
factors has been required. A considerable
challenge for invasion scientists and decision-makers
lies in controlling and eradicating species from
inhabited regions, where challenges related to community
stakeholder perceptions of the need to act,
animal rights and uncertainty surrounding the presence
and abundance of invasive species can threaten
program development and implementation. We interviewed
senior policy advisors and scientists who
developed and implemented European red fox
eradication policies on the inhabited island state of
Tasmania, Australia. Our aim was to understand how
they perceived that scientific evidence and community
stakeholders’ knowledge and preferences should be
involved in developing and implementing policy for
fox detection and eradication. Respondents perceived
that scientific evidence was best used in determining
the need to act, assessing risks, designing eradication
operations and monitoring progress. Overall, they
perceived that involving community stakeholders was
important in creating socially acceptable eradication
operations that enable access to private land to
implement eradication options. Community stakeholders’
knowledge was perceived, largely by scientists,
to be based on misinformation, misconceptions
and mistrust in science and, therefore, of limited value
in informing policy. Community stakeholders were
therefore not viewed as equal partners in the policymaking
process by scientists. Only those stakeholders
who performed a clear function were considered
valuable. We propose that increased likelihood of
successful eradication of invasive species from inhabited
areas can be achieved by using a functional
approach to stakeholder inclusion, to prevent dissent
and conflict by legitimizing varied knowledge and
capacity, leading to co-production of knowledge
within a co-management governance system.
"The food industry is vulnerable to climate change. Producers will need to adapt to climate chang... more "The food industry is vulnerable to climate change. Producers will need to adapt to climate change if they, and the communities dependent on them, are to remain viable. There are essentially two ways to adapt—incrementally and transformationally. We differentiate between incremental and transformative adaptation mostly on the basis of the size of the change needed. Here, we studied the Australian peanut industry, which is already experiencing the effects of climate change. We expand on the notion of adaptive capacity and refer to ‘transformational capacity’ and test its association with resource dependency. Resource dependency is a measure of the interactions that primary producers have with a natural resource and includes factors such as occupational identity, networks, resource use as well as a range of financial factors. We hypothesized that some primary producers were more likely to demonstrate higher levels of transformational capacity if they possessed lower levels of resource dependency. We surveyed, by phone, 69 farmers representing 87 % of the peanut industry in northern Australia. Our results show that the capacity to transform depends upon individual's networks, their employability, tendency for strategic thinking and planning, business profitability, local knowledge, environmental awareness, use of irrigation and use of climate technology. Barriers to transformational change were occupational identity, place attachment and dependents. Our study is one of the first to focus on transformational capacity. This approach allows us to understand why some individuals are better able to adapt to change than others and also to assist industry and community leaders to develop broad-scale strategies."
"The prevalence of private property in most western countries places the responsibility for biodi... more "The prevalence of private property in most western countries places the responsibility for biodiversity conservation in the hands of hundreds of millions of individuals. To preserve the remaining biodiversity on private land, many conservation policies and programs have been deployed. These policies and programs, however, have largely failed, due to a lack of understanding landholders’ social characteristics, which influence their capacity and willingness to participate in conservation programs and adopt conservation practices.
Innovation-adoption theory explains how, why and at what rate innovations are adopted. I used this theory to conceptualise landholder participation in conservation programs because it offers an approach to increase our understanding of the motivations and barriers to participation. Advancements in our knowledge of landholder behaviour can improve the design of conservation programs through more informed choices of policy instruments that assist government and non-government agencies in achieving their conservation policy goals. Currently, our knowledge of the linkages between landholders’ social characteristics and their preferences for policy instruments remains inconclusive.
The overall aim of this research was to contribute to our understanding of how the social characteristics of landholders influence their conservation behaviour, in support of the improved use of policy instruments. Specifically, the objectives of this research were to understand: 1) how social characteristics differed between landholders who had participated in one of three conservation programs; 2) what motivated and limited the involvement of participants; 3) how the social characteristics of conservation program participants and non-participants differed; 4) why some landholders chose not to participate in conservation programs; and 5) how conservation programs could be designed to enlist landholders who may otherwise not participate. To satisfy these research objectives, I designed a revealed preference study to examine landholders’ ‘actual’ preferences for policy instruments. Three north Queensland conservation programs were selected that each employed different policy instruments: the voluntary Queensland Government Nature Refuge Program; the direct-payment Cassowary Coast Rate Deferral Scheme; and the market-based Desert Uplands Landscape Linkages Program. Each program required participants to enter into a conservation agreement or covenant.
Invitations were sent to 58 participants in the three programs. In total, 45 conservation program participants were interviewed between February and June 2009. Twenty-nine landholders who had not participated in one of these programs (non-participants), but who may otherwise have qualified for the program, were recruited, using snowball sampling, and interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were used to administer a survey that comprised both closed and open response questions. Chi-square and randomization tests were used to analyse quantitative data; the discourse analysis methods of grounded theory were used to analyse qualitative data.
The results revealed that landholders’ dominant land use (production or non-production) influenced their preference for policy instruments. Production landholders used the land to derive an income from production-related activities, worked longer hours on their properties and experienced higher levels of stress related to their lifestyle. They were more likely to participate in short-term programs that offered large financial incentives, and conserved less than 25% of their property. Non-production landholders, who did not derive an income from production-related activities, demonstrated stronger personal norms and environmental attitudes regarding their role in conservation, and were more likely to participate in long-term programs that were voluntary or offered small financial incentives, and conserved more than 75% of their property.
I used qualitative data to understand landholders’ relative commitment to biodiversity conservation. Overall, landholders were motivated to participate in conservation programs by conservation, production, financial and experimentally-based imperatives. Production landholders represented all four motivations, while non-production landholders were only motivated by conservation or financial imperatives. These motivations, along with landholders’ perspectives of the landscape (i.e., whether the land could be used for only production or conservation [uni-functional] or both [multifunctional]), influenced how they selected what land they would allocate to conservation. In some instances, these choices resulted in no additional gain beyond what would have occurred from ‘business as usual’, or actually represented a threat to biodiversity.
Comparisons between program participants and non-participants revealed that non-participants had significantly lower levels of human and social capital than participants, in four of the eight dimensions assessed: lifestyle and wellbeing, information and knowledge, environmental attitudes, and trust. Significant differences were not observed for four other dimensions that were measured. Higher levels of pre-existing capital increased the likelihood of landholder participation in conservation programs; lower levels of human capital reduced the likelihood of participation.
Qualitative data were used to understand context-specific reasons for non-participation. Two major barriers to participation existed. First, non-participants believed that the programs did not fit with their personal needs or align with their land management goals and obligations, and were not sufficiently practical or flexible. They feared participation would have directly or indirectly infringed upon their property rights and compromised the economic value of their property. Second, non-participants harboured a deep mistrust of previous and current governments, which represented an impermeable barrier to participation. For some respondents, participation was conditional on the fit between their property goals and both the characteristics of the program and the mandate of the program administrator (i.e., conditional non-participants). For other respondents, these barriers completely inhibited their willingness to participate (resistant non-participants). Non-participants believed that program administrators’ commitment to political goals, implicit in program design, confounded the relevance of conservation programs to their personal needs and property conditions.
These findings make an important contribution to private land conservation policy. Landholders presented as a heterogeneous group of individuals whose participation in conservation programs was defined largely by their reliance on the land for income, landscape perspective, human and social capital, trust in the program administrator, and the politico-historical context. These factors influenced landholders’ capacity and willingness to participate in conservation programs, their preference for policy instruments, and how they selected land to conserve, which suggest that it is no longer necessary to understand adoption of innovation as occurring along a continuum based only on socio-psychological factors. These findings should be used to improve the use of policy instruments in conservation program design so they can genuinely preserve biodiversity on the private land to which they are targeted.
"
"Private land conservation is becoming a popular policy approach, given the constraints of increa... more "Private land conservation is becoming a popular policy approach, given the constraints of increasing public protected areas, which include reduced availability of land for purchase, insufficient budgets for acquisition, and escalating management costs of small, isolated reserves. Conservation covenants represent a common policy instrument, now prominent in the United States, Canada and Australia, employed to compliment the protected area network. When ‘topsoil’ and subsoil, or ‘mineral’ use rights are decoupled,
however, the security of covenants can become threatened if the country’s economic policies take priority over conservation policies and mining is permitted where covenants exist. We discuss this issue on a theoretical level, examining four potential scenarios in which use rights are decoupled or coupled. We demonstrate that decoupled use rights can create an imbalance in the costs and benefits, to landholders and the government, from conservation and mining activities on private properties. We then present a case study in Queensland, Australia, in which the discrepancy of biodiversity and mining policies is directly threatening the ecological outcomes of conservation covenants on private land. We also reflect on our own personal research with landholders in Queensland to highlight the social consequences of
such a policy position on the ability of State and Federal governments to meet their policy commitments. The conflicts we identify can be used to improve the transparency of private land conservation."
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Papers by Katie Moon
programs have been implemented in uninhabited
regions, where little or no consideration of sociopolitical
factors has been required. A considerable
challenge for invasion scientists and decision-makers
lies in controlling and eradicating species from
inhabited regions, where challenges related to community
stakeholder perceptions of the need to act,
animal rights and uncertainty surrounding the presence
and abundance of invasive species can threaten
program development and implementation. We interviewed
senior policy advisors and scientists who
developed and implemented European red fox
eradication policies on the inhabited island state of
Tasmania, Australia. Our aim was to understand how
they perceived that scientific evidence and community
stakeholders’ knowledge and preferences should be
involved in developing and implementing policy for
fox detection and eradication. Respondents perceived
that scientific evidence was best used in determining
the need to act, assessing risks, designing eradication
operations and monitoring progress. Overall, they
perceived that involving community stakeholders was
important in creating socially acceptable eradication
operations that enable access to private land to
implement eradication options. Community stakeholders’
knowledge was perceived, largely by scientists,
to be based on misinformation, misconceptions
and mistrust in science and, therefore, of limited value
in informing policy. Community stakeholders were
therefore not viewed as equal partners in the policymaking
process by scientists. Only those stakeholders
who performed a clear function were considered
valuable. We propose that increased likelihood of
successful eradication of invasive species from inhabited
areas can be achieved by using a functional
approach to stakeholder inclusion, to prevent dissent
and conflict by legitimizing varied knowledge and
capacity, leading to co-production of knowledge
within a co-management governance system.
Innovation-adoption theory explains how, why and at what rate innovations are adopted. I used this theory to conceptualise landholder participation in conservation programs because it offers an approach to increase our understanding of the motivations and barriers to participation. Advancements in our knowledge of landholder behaviour can improve the design of conservation programs through more informed choices of policy instruments that assist government and non-government agencies in achieving their conservation policy goals. Currently, our knowledge of the linkages between landholders’ social characteristics and their preferences for policy instruments remains inconclusive.
The overall aim of this research was to contribute to our understanding of how the social characteristics of landholders influence their conservation behaviour, in support of the improved use of policy instruments. Specifically, the objectives of this research were to understand: 1) how social characteristics differed between landholders who had participated in one of three conservation programs; 2) what motivated and limited the involvement of participants; 3) how the social characteristics of conservation program participants and non-participants differed; 4) why some landholders chose not to participate in conservation programs; and 5) how conservation programs could be designed to enlist landholders who may otherwise not participate. To satisfy these research objectives, I designed a revealed preference study to examine landholders’ ‘actual’ preferences for policy instruments. Three north Queensland conservation programs were selected that each employed different policy instruments: the voluntary Queensland Government Nature Refuge Program; the direct-payment Cassowary Coast Rate Deferral Scheme; and the market-based Desert Uplands Landscape Linkages Program. Each program required participants to enter into a conservation agreement or covenant.
Invitations were sent to 58 participants in the three programs. In total, 45 conservation program participants were interviewed between February and June 2009. Twenty-nine landholders who had not participated in one of these programs (non-participants), but who may otherwise have qualified for the program, were recruited, using snowball sampling, and interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were used to administer a survey that comprised both closed and open response questions. Chi-square and randomization tests were used to analyse quantitative data; the discourse analysis methods of grounded theory were used to analyse qualitative data.
The results revealed that landholders’ dominant land use (production or non-production) influenced their preference for policy instruments. Production landholders used the land to derive an income from production-related activities, worked longer hours on their properties and experienced higher levels of stress related to their lifestyle. They were more likely to participate in short-term programs that offered large financial incentives, and conserved less than 25% of their property. Non-production landholders, who did not derive an income from production-related activities, demonstrated stronger personal norms and environmental attitudes regarding their role in conservation, and were more likely to participate in long-term programs that were voluntary or offered small financial incentives, and conserved more than 75% of their property.
I used qualitative data to understand landholders’ relative commitment to biodiversity conservation. Overall, landholders were motivated to participate in conservation programs by conservation, production, financial and experimentally-based imperatives. Production landholders represented all four motivations, while non-production landholders were only motivated by conservation or financial imperatives. These motivations, along with landholders’ perspectives of the landscape (i.e., whether the land could be used for only production or conservation [uni-functional] or both [multifunctional]), influenced how they selected what land they would allocate to conservation. In some instances, these choices resulted in no additional gain beyond what would have occurred from ‘business as usual’, or actually represented a threat to biodiversity.
Comparisons between program participants and non-participants revealed that non-participants had significantly lower levels of human and social capital than participants, in four of the eight dimensions assessed: lifestyle and wellbeing, information and knowledge, environmental attitudes, and trust. Significant differences were not observed for four other dimensions that were measured. Higher levels of pre-existing capital increased the likelihood of landholder participation in conservation programs; lower levels of human capital reduced the likelihood of participation.
Qualitative data were used to understand context-specific reasons for non-participation. Two major barriers to participation existed. First, non-participants believed that the programs did not fit with their personal needs or align with their land management goals and obligations, and were not sufficiently practical or flexible. They feared participation would have directly or indirectly infringed upon their property rights and compromised the economic value of their property. Second, non-participants harboured a deep mistrust of previous and current governments, which represented an impermeable barrier to participation. For some respondents, participation was conditional on the fit between their property goals and both the characteristics of the program and the mandate of the program administrator (i.e., conditional non-participants). For other respondents, these barriers completely inhibited their willingness to participate (resistant non-participants). Non-participants believed that program administrators’ commitment to political goals, implicit in program design, confounded the relevance of conservation programs to their personal needs and property conditions.
These findings make an important contribution to private land conservation policy. Landholders presented as a heterogeneous group of individuals whose participation in conservation programs was defined largely by their reliance on the land for income, landscape perspective, human and social capital, trust in the program administrator, and the politico-historical context. These factors influenced landholders’ capacity and willingness to participate in conservation programs, their preference for policy instruments, and how they selected land to conserve, which suggest that it is no longer necessary to understand adoption of innovation as occurring along a continuum based only on socio-psychological factors. These findings should be used to improve the use of policy instruments in conservation program design so they can genuinely preserve biodiversity on the private land to which they are targeted.
"
however, the security of covenants can become threatened if the country’s economic policies take priority over conservation policies and mining is permitted where covenants exist. We discuss this issue on a theoretical level, examining four potential scenarios in which use rights are decoupled or coupled. We demonstrate that decoupled use rights can create an imbalance in the costs and benefits, to landholders and the government, from conservation and mining activities on private properties. We then present a case study in Queensland, Australia, in which the discrepancy of biodiversity and mining policies is directly threatening the ecological outcomes of conservation covenants on private land. We also reflect on our own personal research with landholders in Queensland to highlight the social consequences of
such a policy position on the ability of State and Federal governments to meet their policy commitments. The conflicts we identify can be used to improve the transparency of private land conservation."
programs have been implemented in uninhabited
regions, where little or no consideration of sociopolitical
factors has been required. A considerable
challenge for invasion scientists and decision-makers
lies in controlling and eradicating species from
inhabited regions, where challenges related to community
stakeholder perceptions of the need to act,
animal rights and uncertainty surrounding the presence
and abundance of invasive species can threaten
program development and implementation. We interviewed
senior policy advisors and scientists who
developed and implemented European red fox
eradication policies on the inhabited island state of
Tasmania, Australia. Our aim was to understand how
they perceived that scientific evidence and community
stakeholders’ knowledge and preferences should be
involved in developing and implementing policy for
fox detection and eradication. Respondents perceived
that scientific evidence was best used in determining
the need to act, assessing risks, designing eradication
operations and monitoring progress. Overall, they
perceived that involving community stakeholders was
important in creating socially acceptable eradication
operations that enable access to private land to
implement eradication options. Community stakeholders’
knowledge was perceived, largely by scientists,
to be based on misinformation, misconceptions
and mistrust in science and, therefore, of limited value
in informing policy. Community stakeholders were
therefore not viewed as equal partners in the policymaking
process by scientists. Only those stakeholders
who performed a clear function were considered
valuable. We propose that increased likelihood of
successful eradication of invasive species from inhabited
areas can be achieved by using a functional
approach to stakeholder inclusion, to prevent dissent
and conflict by legitimizing varied knowledge and
capacity, leading to co-production of knowledge
within a co-management governance system.
Innovation-adoption theory explains how, why and at what rate innovations are adopted. I used this theory to conceptualise landholder participation in conservation programs because it offers an approach to increase our understanding of the motivations and barriers to participation. Advancements in our knowledge of landholder behaviour can improve the design of conservation programs through more informed choices of policy instruments that assist government and non-government agencies in achieving their conservation policy goals. Currently, our knowledge of the linkages between landholders’ social characteristics and their preferences for policy instruments remains inconclusive.
The overall aim of this research was to contribute to our understanding of how the social characteristics of landholders influence their conservation behaviour, in support of the improved use of policy instruments. Specifically, the objectives of this research were to understand: 1) how social characteristics differed between landholders who had participated in one of three conservation programs; 2) what motivated and limited the involvement of participants; 3) how the social characteristics of conservation program participants and non-participants differed; 4) why some landholders chose not to participate in conservation programs; and 5) how conservation programs could be designed to enlist landholders who may otherwise not participate. To satisfy these research objectives, I designed a revealed preference study to examine landholders’ ‘actual’ preferences for policy instruments. Three north Queensland conservation programs were selected that each employed different policy instruments: the voluntary Queensland Government Nature Refuge Program; the direct-payment Cassowary Coast Rate Deferral Scheme; and the market-based Desert Uplands Landscape Linkages Program. Each program required participants to enter into a conservation agreement or covenant.
Invitations were sent to 58 participants in the three programs. In total, 45 conservation program participants were interviewed between February and June 2009. Twenty-nine landholders who had not participated in one of these programs (non-participants), but who may otherwise have qualified for the program, were recruited, using snowball sampling, and interviewed. Semi-structured interviews were used to administer a survey that comprised both closed and open response questions. Chi-square and randomization tests were used to analyse quantitative data; the discourse analysis methods of grounded theory were used to analyse qualitative data.
The results revealed that landholders’ dominant land use (production or non-production) influenced their preference for policy instruments. Production landholders used the land to derive an income from production-related activities, worked longer hours on their properties and experienced higher levels of stress related to their lifestyle. They were more likely to participate in short-term programs that offered large financial incentives, and conserved less than 25% of their property. Non-production landholders, who did not derive an income from production-related activities, demonstrated stronger personal norms and environmental attitudes regarding their role in conservation, and were more likely to participate in long-term programs that were voluntary or offered small financial incentives, and conserved more than 75% of their property.
I used qualitative data to understand landholders’ relative commitment to biodiversity conservation. Overall, landholders were motivated to participate in conservation programs by conservation, production, financial and experimentally-based imperatives. Production landholders represented all four motivations, while non-production landholders were only motivated by conservation or financial imperatives. These motivations, along with landholders’ perspectives of the landscape (i.e., whether the land could be used for only production or conservation [uni-functional] or both [multifunctional]), influenced how they selected what land they would allocate to conservation. In some instances, these choices resulted in no additional gain beyond what would have occurred from ‘business as usual’, or actually represented a threat to biodiversity.
Comparisons between program participants and non-participants revealed that non-participants had significantly lower levels of human and social capital than participants, in four of the eight dimensions assessed: lifestyle and wellbeing, information and knowledge, environmental attitudes, and trust. Significant differences were not observed for four other dimensions that were measured. Higher levels of pre-existing capital increased the likelihood of landholder participation in conservation programs; lower levels of human capital reduced the likelihood of participation.
Qualitative data were used to understand context-specific reasons for non-participation. Two major barriers to participation existed. First, non-participants believed that the programs did not fit with their personal needs or align with their land management goals and obligations, and were not sufficiently practical or flexible. They feared participation would have directly or indirectly infringed upon their property rights and compromised the economic value of their property. Second, non-participants harboured a deep mistrust of previous and current governments, which represented an impermeable barrier to participation. For some respondents, participation was conditional on the fit between their property goals and both the characteristics of the program and the mandate of the program administrator (i.e., conditional non-participants). For other respondents, these barriers completely inhibited their willingness to participate (resistant non-participants). Non-participants believed that program administrators’ commitment to political goals, implicit in program design, confounded the relevance of conservation programs to their personal needs and property conditions.
These findings make an important contribution to private land conservation policy. Landholders presented as a heterogeneous group of individuals whose participation in conservation programs was defined largely by their reliance on the land for income, landscape perspective, human and social capital, trust in the program administrator, and the politico-historical context. These factors influenced landholders’ capacity and willingness to participate in conservation programs, their preference for policy instruments, and how they selected land to conserve, which suggest that it is no longer necessary to understand adoption of innovation as occurring along a continuum based only on socio-psychological factors. These findings should be used to improve the use of policy instruments in conservation program design so they can genuinely preserve biodiversity on the private land to which they are targeted.
"
however, the security of covenants can become threatened if the country’s economic policies take priority over conservation policies and mining is permitted where covenants exist. We discuss this issue on a theoretical level, examining four potential scenarios in which use rights are decoupled or coupled. We demonstrate that decoupled use rights can create an imbalance in the costs and benefits, to landholders and the government, from conservation and mining activities on private properties. We then present a case study in Queensland, Australia, in which the discrepancy of biodiversity and mining policies is directly threatening the ecological outcomes of conservation covenants on private land. We also reflect on our own personal research with landholders in Queensland to highlight the social consequences of
such a policy position on the ability of State and Federal governments to meet their policy commitments. The conflicts we identify can be used to improve the transparency of private land conservation."