No description available.

Thesis (M. Env. St.)--University of Adelaide, Mawson Graduate Centre for Environmental Studies, 1992. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves 141-150).

Bioregionalism advocates the use of `natural' units rather than administrative units for the delivery of landscape management, planning and decision making. Over the past decade` bioregional' frameworks have been developed as a means of delivering landscape policy in an integrated manner, across the wider countryside in the United Kingdom. Important within bioregionalism is the hybrid relationship between people, place and non-human nature. This thesis acknowledges this relationship and investigates the concept of a sense of place in a UK bioregional context. Two types of bioregions were used as the basis for this study: Natural Areas and river catchments. Using evidence from document analysis, interviews and focus groups, I examined the way in which participants related to the bioregion in which they live. The evidence analysed suggests that a sense of place is more than just a concept and occurs at a range of different spatial scales. This sense of place is complex and integral to the relationship between people and non-human nature, with non-human nature being an important factor in how people relate to place. I concluded that although bioregional frameworks are a relatively recent development within the UK, participants could relate to these units and had a sense of attachment or sense of place in relation to these frameworks. A sense of place was important to the participants within this research and there is the potential to utilise this in relation to working at a wider and more integrated level with the planning, management and conservation of the UK landscape.

Public goods such as environmental conservation, amenity and carbon sequestration are increasingly emphasised in forest policy agendas. However, many public benefits in woodlands have occurred incidentally, rather than on the basis of socio-economic logic and often at locations relatively inaccessible to major centres of population. In fact, data reveal a concentration of privately owned woodland in densely populated areas, especially in central and southern England, and that woodland is often factored into residential location decisions and lifestyle behaviours. However, the provision of public goods is likely to be contingent on the value systems of private forest and woodland owners and their flexibility of response to measures promoted under the devolved forest strategies. A combination of qualitative and quantitative research methods were employed to construct a robust typology of private woodland owners with respect to their willingness and ability to deliver public good benefits in three study areas in England: the Lake District, Cornwall and the High Weald AONB. Building on an exploratory scoping study, Q Methodology interviews were conducted with 10 woodland owners in each study area, followed by a self-completion survey, administered using Dillman's Total Design Method. Data from 600 woodland owners was subjected to a Factor and Cluster Analysis, with the emergent model validated using Discriminant Analysis. Six discrete private woodland owner types were revealed: Individualists, Multifunctional Owners, Private Consumers, Conservationists, Investors and Amenity Owners. Important distinctions between owner groups are associated with the likely provision of particular benefits and disbenefits, and the classification suggests that a move from a production versus consumption/protection framework to one that includes intersecting goals may be more appropriate. Policy implications are discussed to facilitate use of the typology in targeting particular woodland owner groups with more nuanced policy mechanisms, including incentive schemes, market mechanisms and advisory services.

Protected areas are an important tool for biodiversity conservation. Statutory protected areas are, however, perceived to currently be insufficient in extent and functioning for achieving conservation goals. Conservation action on privately owned land plays an increasingly vital role in expanding the global conservation estate. Private Land Conservation Areas (PLCAs) exist with internal properties and external contexts and do not occur isolated in space and time. They can thus best be described as linked social-ecological systems. Little comprehensive work has yet been done concerning the structure and functioning of PLCAs. However, an understanding of their emergence, long-term persistence and contribution to conservation is highly relevant. How can PLCAs maintain their identity against disturbances in order to be resilient into the future? Spatial patterns and relationships determine the answer to this question. Geographical location influences the private conservation estate through different drivers, namely biophysical conditions, network connections and membership, as well as socio-economic conditions. I thus used a comparative, spatially explicit and holistic approach to better understand spatial resilience of PLCAs in the Western Cape Province of South Africa as case study region. The approach was based on assessing representative measures for four elements of system identity (being components, relationships, sources of continuity, and sources of innovation). I expected that geographical location and spatial variation in social-ecological factors strongly influence PLCA types, socio-economic interaction networks among protected areas and other stakeholders, contribution to conservation by PLCAs and their ecotourism performance. Information and data for this research were obtained from personal interviews conducted with owners and managers of 70 PLCAs across the province. Additional data were derived via conservation authorities and online tools. My findings show that the identity and resilience of PLCAs are strongly dominated by the influence of spatial location and heterogeneity in factors such as ecological features or socioeconomic context. I was able to verify existing PLCA types, namely game and habitat reserves, which strongly depended on the biophysical context. Visitation rates were influenced by location which determined the adopted corporate model of PLCAs. Clear neighbourhood effects emerged in socioeconomic interaction networks, which further highlighted great potential to enhance collaboration across scales. PLCAs provided a substantial contribution to conservation targets in terms of importance (covering critical biodiversity areas) and urgency (protecting ecosystems of threatened status). My findings will be valuable to highlight opportunities for more effective conservation in the study region, and to advance insights into the spatial resilience of social-ecological systems.

The Gulf Coast Region (GCR) of the United States holds immense ecological and cultural value. However, constant environmental changes, from sea-level rise and hurricanes to the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, threaten many of the values that define the region. Additionally, recent financial settlements from civil and criminal penalties of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill have created an unprecedented opportunity to fund conservation throughout the region. With such a large area of interest (over 700,000 km2) and so many conservation priorities throughout the GCR, there is a great need to strategize which lands are most efficacious for conservation to optimize the protection of ecological and socioeconomic values. Given the importance of ecologically sound data to informing conservation planning, I directed my dissertation to develop gulf-wide datasets to be used in a geospatial tool to support land conservation actions in the GCR. My dissertation addresses three fundamental objectives: 1) assessing how landscapes are associated with estuarine biotic health; 2) mapping hydrologic response to changes in land-use; and, 3) creating indices of land conservation value with regards to modeled associations (from objective 1) with estuarine biotic health. For objective 1, I constructed three hierarchical models across 33 GCR estuaries and their associated watersheds. I estimated the expected number of fish and shrimp species observed in a trawl sample based on temperature, salinity, and runoff volume per catchment area across six different land-use/land-cover (LULC) classes. These models can provide a quantitative basis for assigning offsite values to lands for conservation potential within the GCR. For objective 2, I assessed associations of different LULC classes with hydrologic changes, measured by peak flow (cfs), from 1996-2016 within each GCR watershed, which can be valuable to conservation planning that seeks to focus on preserving or restoring more typical flow regimes. For my 3rd objective, I developed an index of conservation value which incorporates relationships among LULC, hydrologic connectivity, and estuarine biotic health for lands within the GCR. These elements will help address lesser understood land conservation needs in the GCR to better enable conservation planners to protect the values of this region in the face of inevitable change.

There is an increasing imperative to conserve the biological diversity of the world to ensure its future viability and integrity. The traditional approach in England has been to protect a series of small, isolated sites. Recent research has demonstrated the inadequacies of this approach, suggesting a need to direct energies more towards conservation in the surrounding wider countryside. However, there are considerable difficulties associated with achieving biodiversity objectives in the wider countryside, as there is a heavy reliance on non-statutory planning mechanisms. Whereas solutions to biodiversity conservation have generally been seen to lie in the realm of natural science, this thesis recognises the need for a better understanding of the people, policies and activities involved in the process. It therefore couples social science perspectives with an understanding of ecological science principles, in order to investigate the issues affecting the implementation of biodiversity conservation plans in three case studies in south west England. By employing a range of qualitative techniques this research: defines a number of conservation objectives for the study areas; uses conservation objectives as a basis for conducting a content analysis of biodiversity planning documents, in order to uncover potential implementation opportunities and barriers; presents the results in an analytical framework; explores and refines these through a series of semi-structured interviews with key biodiversity actors. This research uncovers a complex set of interacting issues. These issues relate to partnership styles of working, building agreement and trust, variable levels of knowledge about habitat and species in the wider countryside, restoration techniques, indicative strategies, strategic targeting of resources, financial support to farmers and other land managers, the role of monitoring, and policy responses to recent agricultural crises. The results attest to the importance of a social-scientific understanding of biodiversity planning, in particular, of the forces which drive or obstruct the implementation of local solutions. The thesis concludes with a number of recommendations, based on original evidence, aimed at improving the implementation of biodiversity plans in the wider countryside.

What motivates agricultural-land owners to use conservation easements? As these legal tools have become a popular strategy for private land conservation in the U.S., a growing body of literature is examining how and why landowners conserve their properties through conservation easements. This research project expands upon environmental, geographical and rural land development literature through a qualitative fieldwork study of 34 private, conservation landowners associated with the Franklin Land Trust, a nonprofit conservation organization in western Massachusetts. The study identifies a broad range of environmental, social, spiritual and financial motivations for agricultural-land owners to conserve their properties, and indicates that for the vast majority of study participants certain motivations were more important than others depending on landowners’ level of reliance on their land to sustain their livelihoods. Using this classification criterion, landowner profiles identified in this study include full-time farmers, supplemental-income farmers, and farmland retreat owners. For most of the landowners within the biggest group—the full-time farmers—the most important motivation to conserve was financial; particularly, to obtain a cash payment to improve the economic viability of their farming operation. Nonetheless, the financial motivation was not the only important one for the 34 landowners, nor was it always the most important. This study makes two additional contributions to land conservation research. First, it examines agricultural-land conservation through phenomenological approaches to the study of place. In this regard, findings suggest landowners and land trust staff members have different relationships with the conserved land and its surroundings and, therefore, different senses of place. Second, the study frames agricultural-land conservation through conservation easements as a potential aspect of rural sustainability with respect to the economic, social, and environmental benefits of conservation, from the point of view of both agricultural-land owners and a land trust. The findings also indicate that the landowners of this study were generally very satisfied with the outcomes of using conservation easements despite drawbacks. Overall, this study contributes to land conservation studies through an analysis of individual motivations and experiences that shape the decisions of agricultural-land owners to grant conservation easements.

Ranching communities in Texas have long recognized fee hunting as a natural resource with the potential of directly affecting agricultural incomes. Hunting as an industry today, appears to be developing into an economic substitute for Texas ranchers who are accustomed to the variable nature of agricultural markets. To determine the economic impact of this market relative to its functional utilization by landowners, this research analyzed a large group of landowners in Central and South Texas. Information was collected through a personal interview process of 146 landowners. Data collected primarily related to the individual landowners' specific fee hunting operations and the economics associated with their enterprise operations. Response data was tabulated and examined through use of comparative analysis and bivariate methods when appropriate. Output yielded a descriptive demographic profile of landowners along with landowner opinion/attitude on ensuing constraints and values of enterprise operations. Additionally, costs and returns to operations were summarized through development of an enterprise budget by ecoregion. From this analysis, it became clear that many landowners possess strong 'feelings' about their lands and appear to share parallel ideologies relative to their properties as an earned entitlement and privilege to be passed along to their heirs. However, these Texas ranchers are well aware of the economic pressures under which they must operate and their commitment to sound land management practices increasingly includes wildlife management. This, much in part, is due to the dramatic increase in revenues generated by fee hunting enterprises over the past decade. However, the budget analysis indicates possible constraints when landownership size becomes smaller such as through the sale of parcels for business purposes or through inheritance.

Ranching communities in Texas have long recognized fee hunting as a natural resource with the potential of directly affecting agricultural incomes. Hunting as an industry today, appears to be developing into an economic substitute for Texas ranchers who are accustomed to the variable nature of agricultural markets. To determine the economic impact of this market relative to its functional utilization by landowners, this research analyzed a large group of landowners in Central and South Texas. Information was collected through a personal interview process of 146 landowners. Data collected primarily related to the individual landowners' specific fee hunting operations and the economics associated with their enterprise operations. Response data was tabulated and examined through use of comparative analysis and bivariate methods when appropriate. Output yielded a descriptive demographic profile of landowners along with landowner opinion/attitude on ensuing constraints and values of enterprise operations. Additionally, costs and returns to operations were summarized through development of an enterprise budget by ecoregion. From this analysis, it became clear that many landowners possess strong 'feelings' about their lands and appear to share parallel ideologies relative to their properties as an earned entitlement and privilege to be passed along to their heirs. However, these Texas ranchers are well aware of the economic pressures under which they must operate and their commitment to sound land management practices increasingly includes wildlife management. This, much in part, is due to the dramatic increase in revenues generated by fee hunting enterprises over the past decade. However, the budget analysis indicates possible constraints when landownership size becomes smaller such as through the sale of parcels for business purposes or through inheritance.