Abstract
Conservation covenants and easements have become essential tools to secure biodiversity outcomes on private land, and to assist in meeting international protection targets. In Australia, the number and spatial area of conservation covenants has grown significantly in the past decade. Yet there has been little research or detailed policy analysis of conservation covenanting in Australia. We sought to determine how conservation covenanting agencies were measuring the biodiversity conservation outcomes achieved on covenanted properties, and factors inhibiting or contributing to measuring these outcomes. In addition, we also investigated the drivers and constraints associated with actually delivering the biodiversity outcomes, drawing on detailed input from covenanting programs. Although all conservation covenanting programs had the broad aim of maintaining or improving biodiversity in their covenants in the long term, the specific stated objectives of conservation covenanting programs varied. Programs undertook monitoring and evaluation in different ways and at different spatial and temporal scales. Thus, it was difficult to determine the extent Australian conservation covenanting agencies were measuring the biodiversity conservation outcomes achieved on covenanted properties on a national scale. Lack of time available to covenantors to undertake management was one of the biggest impediments to achieving biodiversity conservation outcomes. A lack of financial resources and human capital to monitor, knowing what to monitor, inconsistent monitoring methodologies, a lack of benchmark data, and length of time to achieve outcomes were all considered potential barriers to monitoring the biodiversity conservation outcomes of conservation covenants.
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Notes
Despite being registered on the title, only a small number of NSW Wildlife Refuges have extra provisions that make them in-perpetuity agreements. Given the considerable number, and particularly the area under Wildlife Refuges, comparisons between programs are best made by excluding these Wildlife Refuge agreements. New covenant programs have emerged since 2007 (see http://www.environment.gov.au/node/13913); however, they represent only a very small proportion of the total covenants at present.
BushTender is an auction-based approach to protecting and improving the management of native vegetation on private land. Under this system, landholders competitively tender for contracts to better protect and improve their native vegetation. Successful bids are those that offer the best value for money, with successful landholders receiving periodic payments for their management actions under agreements signed with the Victorian Government.
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Acknowledgments
The initial research for this paper was funded by the (former) Australian Government Department of Environment and Water Resources (now Department of Environment). Both authors worked for Bush Heritage Australia at the time of the interviews and in-kind support was provided by that organization during that process. We thank Nicole Elliott, Anne Close, Phil Strickland, and Sam Hampton from the Department of Environment and Water Resources for project support, and representatives of the covenanting agencies and covenantors interviewed for their insights. Geoff Wescott, Joe Kiesecker, Luis Bojorquez-Tapia, and three anonymous referees provided comments that improved this paper.
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Fitzsimons, J.A., Carr, C.B. Conservation Covenants on Private Land: Issues with Measuring and Achieving Biodiversity Outcomes in Australia. Environmental Management 54, 606–616 (2014). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-014-0329-4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-014-0329-4