The Challenge

Habitat loss and environmental degradation are major drivers in the decline of biodiversity throughout the world. Protected areas are often established to counter this loss and help safeguard biodiversity, ecosystem services, and cultural values. The National Reserve System in Australia includes thousands of protected areas and covers nearly 18% of the country. Most of the remaining land is privately owned.

Many programs exist to encourage private landholders to protect biodiversity on their land. Little is known, however, about the actual effectiveness of those programs at maintaining or improving conditions for biodiversity, or for enabling lasting partnerships between landholders and agencies for conservation goals.

The Response

To assess some of the social and ecological outcomes of private land conservation programs, we’re currently focusing on three main topics within the context of conservation covenanting mechanisms:
  1. The ecology, management, and monitoring of covenanted properties
  2. The influence of a landholder's social connections on his or her land management decisions
  3. Perspectives of covenanting mechanisms by landholders and covenant providers
Research into these topics will include:
  • Interviews with landholders and land managers who have conservation covenants on their properties in New South Wales, Victoria, South Australia, and Tasmania
  • Interviews with staff members throughout Australia who implement conservation covenanting programs
  • A survey available to all covenanted landholders in Australia

Intended Outcomes

Research efforts will provide insight about the social and ecological outcomes of different conservation covenanting mechanisms in Australia. This can inform agencies and landholders of ways to improve biodiversity conservation on private lands.

Results will be published as thesis chapters, journal articles, summary reports, and presented at professional conferences.

We have also created a Community page where landholders and researchers can connect about topics related to land management and conservation covenants. We hope this can turn into a useful resource with time.

Timeline

Major tasks through the project's life are mapped below. Tasks may shift to adapt to project influences.