Impulses towards a multifunctional transition in rural Australia: Gaps in the research agenda

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Journal of Rural Studies 22 (2006) 142–160 www.elsevier.com/locate/jrurstud

Impulses towards a multifunctional transition in rural Australia: Gaps in the research agenda John Holmes School of Geography, Planning and Architecture, The University of Queensland, 4072, Australia

Abstract The direction, complexity and pace of rural change in affluent, western societies can be conceptualized as a multifunctional transition, in which a variable mix of consumption and protection values has emerged, contesting the former dominance of production values, and leading to greater complexity and heterogeneity in rural occupance at all scales. This transition is propelled by three dominant driving forces, namely: agricultural overcapacity; the emergence of market-driven amenity values; and growing societal awareness of sustainability and preservation issues. Australia’s generous supply of land and sparse investment in agriculture has facilitated local transitions towards enhanced consumption and protection values, enabling a clearer delineation of emerging differentiated modes of rural occupance than in more contested locales. In Australia seven distinctive modes of occupance can be identified, according to the relative precedence given to production, consumption or protection values. These modes are described as: productivist agricultural; rural amenity; small farm (or pluriactive); peri-metropolitan; marginalized agricultural; conservation; and indigenous. Within these seven modes, alternative trajectories are identified, indicating variability in the intensity and type of resource use. Articulation of the transition concept may provide synergy between discrete discourses in rural research. r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Conceptualizing rural change 1.1. Alternative concepts: post-productivism or multifunctionality? The pace and complexity of rural change in affluent, western societies has attracted a substantial body of research and commentary in the last decade or so. Much of this research has been informed by wider theoretical perspectives on socio-economic change. Yet, as observed by Marsden (1999, p. 504) ‘‘yUnderstanding the balance of economic, social and environmental processes which shape the contemporary countryside, and the interrelationships between these in particular localities, requires far more than the rigidly sectoralized forms of knowledge which have characterized rural research in the post-war period. A synergy between previously discrete knowledge bases is now needed.’’

E-mail address: [email protected]. 0743-0167/$ - see front matter r 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jrurstud.2005.08.006

However imperfectly, the only conceptualization remotely offering such synergy has been the concept of a ‘postproductivist transition’ (PPT), a concept fully explored by British researchers (Wilson, 2001). Its utility was also recognized in this writer’s interpretation of rural change in Australia’s rangelands, where, however, in my concluding commentary, I expressed a preference for an alternative concept and nomenclature, described as a multifunctional rural transition (MRT) (Holmes, 2002, p. 381). In this present article, I seek to provide a more complete articulation of the MRT concept, including a scrutiny of the forces driving this transition as well as providing a structured appraisal of the highly differentiated and contested outcomes in rural Australia, aptly described by Marsden (1999, p. 507) as ‘‘creating new rural geographies of value’’. It is argued that, at its core, the multifunctional transition involves a radical re-ordering in the three basic purposes underlying human use of rural space, namely production, consumption and protection. The transition can be characterised as a shift from the formerly dominant production goals towards a more complex, contested,

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variable mix of production, consumption and protection goals. These three basic goals can be linked to the forces driving the transition to multifunctional rural occupance, namely agricultural overcapacity (the production goal), the emergence of market-driven amenity uses (the consumption goal) and changing societal values (the protection goal). The value of conceptualizing multifunctionality as encompassing a mix of production, consumption and protection goals can be further demonstrated by developing a generic classification of modes of rural occupance according to the precedence given to these three goals, as outlined in Section 1.3 and applied to Australia’s rural geography in Section 4. In order to gauge the utility of the MRT concept, some reference should be made to the PPT concept, currently the only overarching conceptualization of the rural transition. 1.2. Rural change conceptualized as a PPT The concept of a PPT has the attraction of being a generous, commodious receptacle, seemingly capable of assimilating many disparate ingredients. It has provided one much-debated focus in the revival of rural research in the United Kingdom, to an extent acknowledged even by its most trenchant critics ‘‘yseeking to remove the debris of post-productivism so as to facilitate new theoretical developments’’ (Evans et al., 2002, p. 326). It is a term that neatly captures a sense of fundamental change in postwar agriculture covering the political culture within which agriculture operates, the policy and market conditions under which farming takes place and the experiences of the farmers themselves. It has been successfully deployed within discourses on wider rural change which recognise the declining significance of farming in the social and economic fabric of rural spacey.the term appears to appeal to academics because it encompasses both macro and micro changes and pulls together a wide range of rural issues. It captures, within a single catchphrase, problems of landuse planning, rural development and both on-farm and off-farm social and economic change. (Evans et al., 2002, p. 314). With such credentials, and notwithstanding its manifest imperfections (Wilson, 2001; Evans et al., 2002; Argent, 2002), it is remarkable that the PPT concept has received negligible recognition beyond its UK origins. As in the United States, Canada and New Zealand, the PPT concept has failed to capture attention among ‘mainstream’ Australian rural researchers. In a recent comprehensive review of Australian rural sociology (Lockie et al., 2003), there is no reference to the PPT, consistent with its hiatus in Australian research discourse. The descriptor ‘productivist’ is rarely used, save occasionally in Lawrence’s prolific, pivotal publications. Only two Australian authors have

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given substantive attention to the PPT concept. This writer found it useful in interpreting of the transition in resource appraisals in Australia’s rangelands. Argent, on the other hand, concludes that ‘‘ywhile the concept of ‘‘postproductivism’ is superficially appealing, it has little practical or conceptual application to Australian conditions’’ (Argent, 2002, p. 97). This Australian disregard of the PPT concept raises an intriguing question. Is the concept of little diagnostic value in understanding contemporary rural change in Australia, particularly when compared with the UK? Or, alternatively, is it rather indicative of research preoccupations strongly influenced by leading rural researchers shaping the initial agenda, with the Australian research agenda being markedly different from the PPT agenda set in the UK? As argued at Section 2, both postulates have some explanatory value. In their well-directed focus on certain critical issues confronting Australian rural peoples, communities, sectors and regions, rural researchers have given insufficient attention to ‘‘ythe diversity, non-linearity and spatial heterogeneity that currently can be observed in modern agriculture and rural society.’’ (Wilson, 2001, p. 77). This involves ‘‘ythe need to appreciate the significance of space and locality not just as residual variables but as causal social factors in moulding development’’ (Marsden et al., 1993, p. 20). 1.3. Rural change conceptualized as a multifunctional transition It will further be argued that Australian rural research currently needs a ‘‘ymore integrative and comparative research approach’’ (Marsden, 1999, p. 504), comparable to that provided by the PPT concept. However there is a cogent case to be made that multifunctionality rather than post-productivism is the central dynamic driving rural change, not only in Australia but more generally in affluent societies. This was recognised by Wilson (2001) in his detailed review of the PPT concept, which he characterized as a transition along a productivist/post-productivist spectrum towards a Multifunctional Agricultural Regime. Here the concept of multifunctionality is extended to encompass all modes of broadscale rural resource use and not solely an attribute of agricultural use. This concept of a MRT is articulated in Fig. 1. It follows logically from my provisional identification of the forces driving rural change. In the conclusion to my paper on the Australian rangelands transition (Holmes, 2002), I proposed three driving forces contributing to multifunctionality and increased spatial heterogeneity in the use of rural resources. These driving forces are: Agricultural overcapacity: Technological advances, reinforced by state protectionism, have propelled agricultural intensification at favoured locales, also leading to farm redundancy elsewhere, expressed in loss of viability and resolved through pluriactivity, extensification, disinvestment and/or conversion to non-farm uses.

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DRIVING FORCES IN THE REVALUATION OF RURAL RESOURCES

PROTECTION

PRODUCTION CONSUMPTION Agricultural hyper productivity

Enhanced access, higher incomes and lifestyle changes

Emergence of environmental and social justice concerns

Endemic overcapacity

Translation of commodity surplus into land surplus: redundancy

Urban penetration: residential, recreation, tourism, etc.

Amenity premium on land values Release of surplus resources to alternative purposes

Identification of rural 'solutions' Policies and programmes towards sustainability, protection of biodiversity and indigenous land rights

Farm adjustment via pluriactivity and off-farm income

Transition Towards Multifunctionality in the appraisal, allocation, use and management of rural resources

Increasing diversity, complexity and spatial heterogeneity in modes of rural occupance, with seven generalised modes identifiable in rural Australia

Productivist Agricultural Mode [Production values dominant]

Rural Amenity Mode [Consumption values dominant]

Pluriactive Mode [Mix of production and consumption values]

PeriMetropolitan Mode [Intense competition on values]

Marginalised Agricultural Mode [Potential integration of production and protection values]

Conservation and Indigenous Modes [Protection values emphasised]

Fig. 1. The transition to multifunctional resource use of rural space in Australia: driving forces and territorial outcomes.

The emergence of market-driven amenity-oriented uses: Rural space is increasingly being ‘consumed’ by marketdriven urban interests, attracted by residential, tourism, recreational, lifestyle or investment opportunities and by farm households increasingly dependent on non-farm income.

Changing societal values: In addition to alternative market-driven uses, certain societal concerns can only be pursued effectively in rural space. These include concerns tied to sustainable resource management, biodiversity preservation, landscape protection and indigenous land rights. In most contexts, these concerns are leading towards

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the emergence of a doctrine of multifunctionality in rural resource use, in which, for example, environmental services can be integrated into an agricultural production system. Agricultural overcapacity and redundancy can facilitate recognition of these values, including conversion to nonagricultural uses and non-transferable tenures. 1.4. Multifunctionality: an alternative conceptualization These three driving forces can be linked to the three basic purposes underlying human use of rural space, namely: production (agricultural overcapacity); consumption (the emergence of market-driven amenity uses); protection (societal values concerned with sustainability and preservation goals). Prompted by a reminder from Richard Le Heron (personal communication) that ‘‘our particular mid-20th century lens is an experience of near monofunctionality’’, it is useful to recall that, through the long history of human resource use, these three purposes (production, consumption and protection) have generally been intrinsic and indivisible, most markedly so in hunter/collector societies, evidenced within Australian aboriginal culture. ‘‘Land provides a central medium through which all aspects of life are mediated, and economic considerations are merely part of an intimate, immediate, fundamentally holistic relationship.’’ (Strang, 1997, p. 84). In current parlance this can be seen as a holistic mode of multifunctional resource use (or rural occupanceysee later). Traditional, primarily subsistence modes of agricultural occupance also are multifunctional, not merely through product diversification, but more critically, through having consumption and protection values embedded within production modes of resource use. It is only with the emergence of commodified, agro-industrial modes that monofunctionality became the norm, not merely in material outputs but, more importantly, in the supremacy of production goals over consumption and protection. Only over the last two or three decades have western, market-oriented modes of rural occupance revealed a marked trend towards overt recognition of multifunctionality, an inevitable outcome of the radical shift from the formerly dominant production goals towards a more complex, contested, variable mix of production, consumption and protection goals. These new pluralistic multifunctional modes are markedly at variance with earlier, subsistence modes of multifunctional occupance, lacking the integrated, embedded values that were central to subsistence occupance. Complexity and variability in time and space is leading to greater heterogeneity in values, goals and uses at all scales: rural holding; locality; topographic unit; ‘social landscape’; region; bioclimatic zone; and nation.

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The term MRT is to be preferred over the descriptor PPT, not only because of its accuracy, conciseness and generality in conceptualizing the current rural transition, but it avoids the historicist myopia attached to the prefix ‘post’. The concept can be usefully deployed, even without the interpretation of ‘pre-modern’ multifunctionality, discussed above. Multifunctionality is increasingly recognised as a characteristic of all rural holdings, even those outwardly in pursuit of monofunctional production or consumption goals. At a minimum, these holdings are now required to contribute to protection goals (environmental services) through water management, vegetation management and related regulations. In Australia, multifunctionality is receiving some research attention at the farm and catchment scales towards the goal of sustainable resource use. It is also recognised in the emergence of government-supported nationwide movements, such as Landcare (Martin and Halpin, 1998; Sobels et al., 2001; Wilson, 2004). The multifunctionality concept has also been pivotal in setting new, if not yet fully realised, policy directions in the European Union. In response to WTO rules, which allow for non-trade concerns to be considered in trade negotiations, in 1998 the EU Agriculture Ministers proposed new, allowable measures of agricultural support by recognising ‘‘yexternality and public good aspects of the various noncommodity outputs of agriculture’’ (OECD, 2001, p.5). This involves a selective identification of environmental and socio-economic benefits from agriculture. In its probing analysis of the multifunctionality concept, the OECD report looks beyond agriculture, but confines its application to ‘‘ythe production process and its multiple outputs’’ (p. 6). Consistent with this limitation, the report refers to forestry but not to forests, nor is there any recognition of multiple values (or ‘outputs’) from rivers, wildlife or other natural ‘production’ systems. It would be unfortunate if such a useful, indeed pivotal, term should acquire restricted usage through the preemptive discourse of policy-makers and advisers in the EU and OECD and also generally accepted in rural research, as is the case in Van Huylenbroeck and Durand (2003). In any case, as pointed out by Potter and Burney (2002: pp. 39–40), ‘‘the idea that agriculture is capable of delivering multiple benefits is not particularly novel or controversial’’, rather there are issues about the robustness of the concept, the validity of the claim by EU negotiators on adverse outcomes from the abolition of blue-box subsidies and the implications for policy design consistent with WTO disciplines. Of relevance to the present discussion is the position of EU negotiators ‘‘encapsulating the idea that a biodiverse landscape is one largely occupied and managed by farmers.’’ In the EU this is a debatable assumption; in Australia there are cogent counter-arguments. Lowe et al. (2002, pp. 12–15) report on divergent British and French programmes initiated under the revised CAP, with the multifunctionality concept linked to agriculture in the French agenda and to the ‘countryside’ in the British agenda.

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1.5. Complexity in modes and trajectories of human occupance The transition towards enhanced multifunctionality as a goal in rural resource use is leading to greater complexity and heterogeneity in the differentiation of rural space. In comprehending this spatial diversity, a useful approach is to scrutinize the dynamics of rural change according to the relative precedence accorded to production, consumption or protection values in shaping modes of rural occupance. In the current Australian rural context, seven distinctive occupance modes can be identified, namely: a productivist agricultural mode (production values dominant); a rural amenity mode (consumption values dominant); a small farm or pluriactivity mode (mix of production and consumption values); a peri-metropolitan mode (intense contests between production, consumption and protection values); a marginalised agricultural mode (potential integration of production and protection values); and conservation as well as indigenous modes (protection values emphasized). Within each of these modes, markedly divergent resource-use trajectories can be delineated, as described in Section 4 and Tables 1–7.

In this appraisal of emerging directions in the human use of rural space, the term ‘occupance mode’ is preferred over Marsden’s (2003) ‘territorialization dynamic’, Barr’s (2002) ‘social landscape’ or Halfacree’s (1999) ‘spatial practice’. In the Oxford English Dictionary (1989), ‘occupance’ is defined as ‘(spec. in Geog.) the inhabiting and modification of an area by man (sic).’ Provided that the last word is replaced by ‘humans’, this seems an admirable all-encompassing descriptor of the complex processes associated with human use of land-based resources. The term ‘sequent occupance’ achieved currency in the 1930s among culturally oriented historical geographers concerned with the static, descriptive approach characteristic of the dominant discourse in regional geography. It achieved prominence following Whittlesey’s forceful exposition. ‘‘Spatial extent is taken for granted as implicit in the geographic craftyThese spatial concepts remain purely descriptive, however, unless the time factor is cognized. The view of geography as a succession of stages of human occupance establishes the genetics of each stage in terms of its predecessor.’’ (Whittlesey, 1929, p. 162). Dodge (1938) provides a useful review of research in his overly ambitious attempt at a systematic classification of ‘modes of occupance’.

Table 1 Productivist agricultural occupance (production values dominant) Incidence On localised prime agricultural lands along coast: sugar, horticulture, dairying with some irrigation On high-rainfall improved pasture lands of coast and highlands In the ‘agricultural heartland’ of the inland, dominated by cereal cropping with livestock On all major irrigation areas for horticulture, irrigated pastures, rice, cotton, tropical products On core pastoral lands within the rangelands Driving forces Local economy and society remain dependent on agriculture Farm viability propelled by need to maintain competitiveness Limited opportunities for diversification into non-agricultural activities Increasing concern about environmental, economic and social sustainability Core attributes Land values tied to income from agricultural production Agricultural treadmill, enforced adoption of innovations Prosperous but unstable farm incomes Continuing population and urban decline save in irrigation areas, near major urban centres and localised development projects. Alternative trajectories Intensification: Irrigation (the most preferred route, but with environmental constraints) Intensification of farming practice Specialised niche products Factory farming Biotechnologies (genetic engineering) Note: All of these have limitations to expansion and some will be localised in irrigation areas or with pluriactive occupance Scale economies: farm aggregation, also involving more efficient use of farm infrastructure (the most obvious strategy for most ‘heartland’ farmers) Extensification: involving an increase in the ratio of land inputs to labour and other purchased inputs. This is occurring in some coastal up-valley zones currently unable to attract amenity investment; also on less productive inland agricultural lands Stability: on large grazing properties in the high rainfall and pastoral zones Obsolescence: on smaller, non-viable grazing properties in the high rainfall and pastoral zones, lacking the financial resources to achieve amalgamations, with limited scope for diversification or pluriactivity, and in transition to marginalized agricultural occupance Source: Compiled by author.

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Table 2 Rural amenity occupance (consumption values dominant) Incidence Major zones around cities and prime tourist destinations Smaller zones around all towns, proportional to town size and amenity potential Outliers in remote locations, attractive to members of alternative society Driving forces Time-space compression, with enhanced mobility and communication systems Additional technological advances, enhancing dispersed rural residential lifestyles Discretionary residential location, no longer tied to income sources Increasing metropolitan-rural differentials in housing and living costs Penetration of urban influences and values, including recreation and tourism Incentives to rapid capital accumulation through land conversion and development Core attributes New ‘geographies of value’, with real estate market driven by consumption rather than production values Farming as a relict or incidental activity Narrowly focussed environmental issues, tied to lifestyle and real estate values Alternative trajectories Comment: Unlike the UK, where land scarcity leads to a ‘contested countryside’, ‘class colonization’, ‘positional advantage’ and the ‘politics of exclusion’, rural Australia offers a generous supply of landscapes, capable of accommodating all tastes and almost all incomes, with welfare and retirement migration being a major component in the counterurbanization process. The diverse array of rural amenity landscapes includes: Rural residential estates: With lots from 0.4 to 5 hectares, estates have proliferated, consuming ever-expanding zones around all cities and major towns. Rural residential embraces a full spectrum of incomes, real estate values and infrastructures, from prestige estates to poverty ghettoes where affordability is the only attraction Prestige countryside: In close proximity to each major city is an identifiable, established zone of prestige rural estates, comparable to those in the UK and with emerging pockets near prime coastal and highland resorts Hobby farming: Small holdings in which farming is seen primarily as a hobby rather than a major income source Alternative lifestylers: Although occupying limited land areas, of negligible agricultural value that commonly was vacated in the retreat of subtropical dairying, alternative lifestylers comprise a major component of population and social activity in some near-coastal locations, in some cases being subsequently displaced in the commodification of their cultural landscapes Welfare migrants: Occupy any affordable niche, also including vacant farmhouses and caravans Source: Compiled by author.

2. The Australian context: spatial disconnection leading to research disconnection In returning to the question whether research context or researcher preoccupations have led to lack of Australian interest in the PPT concept, my starting point is to note certain obvious differences in rural geography compared with the UK, notably in the intensity and complexity of competing demands placed on rural space and in the availability, quality and location of space to accommodate these demands. Unlike the UK, Australia is a land of vast spaces, with a seemingly generous supply of land to meet current production and consumption demands, and with a ‘residue’ available to preserve valued semi-natural or natural ecosystems. Also, fortuitously, save in select perimetropolitan, coastal and riverine locations, there is commonly a near-total disconnection between high-value agricultural and high-demand amenity landscapes. This spatial disconnection has led to a parallel disconnection in research communities, each seemingly capable of effective work in ignorance of the research concerns of others. For two substantial agendas, both pivotal within the PPT discourse, there is a spatial discontinuity with clear implications in fostering distinc-

tive, disconnected research agendas. These are the production-oriented political economy discourse, seen by Wilson (2001, p. 78) as the dominant approach within the PPT debate and the consumption-oriented counterurbanization discourse, seen by Halfacree and Boyle (1998, p. 9) as ‘‘yperhaps the central dynamic in the creation of any post-productivist countryside.’’ The linkage between these two research agendas is readily apparent in the spatially restricted, increasingly contested British landscapes, where the interplay between production, consumption and protection goals, at all scales from farm and locality to national, is indeed the ‘central dynamic’’. The concept of a PPT has been pivotal in identifying complementarities and contests in the forces leading to a more heterogeneous rural landscape. While such complex contests are increasingly emerging in rural Australia, currently they are localized and overshadowed by other ‘central dynamics’, with the most important of these being summed up by Hugo and Bell (1998, p. 111): It is clear that there is a growing dichotomy emerging in Australia’s non-metropolitan areas with respect to population growth patterns and the economic trends which underlie them. On the one hand are the well-watered

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Table 3 Small farm or pluriactive rural occupance (mix of production and consumption values) Incidence Widely distributed in the more accessible and attractive high rainfall areas, particularly in areas subject to closer settlement projects and in the former subtropical dairying zone, where holdings were converted to part-time cattle grazing Driving forces Continuing role of agriculture as a significant economic activity Progressive loss of farm viability, save in specialized, niche farming or pluriactivity Household viability achieved through pluriactivity, requiring on-farm and/or off-farm alternative income sources Amenity premium on land values precludes farm restructuring by amalgamation Penetration of residential non-farm uses impeded by current mode of part-time farming and by planning constraints against subdivision Core attributes Complex, unpredictable land markets, influenced by production and consumption values Diverse economic opportunities for farm households with choice strongly influenced by personal attributes, including household composition, skills, qualifications, motivation and stage in life course, as well as farm resources and accessibility Ongoing challenge in finding appropriate balance between farm and non-farm activities, particularly for farmers Increasing frequency of semi-retirement by existing landholders and newcomers Sporadic maintenance of a production-oriented landscape, with some disinvestments Alternative trajectories Marked farm-to-farm variability in production and consumption activities, intensity of use and investment levels as well as in demographic attributes of farm households Variability and intensity of use higher in more accessible locales, also with greater opportunities for on-farm consumption-oriented activities, such as farmstays and for off-farm income Opportunities for semi-retirement and provision of ecosystem services, such as revegetation and low-intensity grazing on cheaper land with poorer access Note: This type is broadly consistent with Marsden’s ‘Rural Development Dynamic’ and Barr’s ‘Small Farm Future Landscape’. Source: Compiled by author.

Table 4 Peri-metropolitan occupance (intense competition between production, consumption and protection values) Incidence An irregular zone, usually within 30 min travel time from the city’s edge, but with outliers extending up to 60 min from Sydney. The areal extent of the zone is proportionate to the population size and wealth of the city, also influenced by the amenity values attached to this zone Though small in areal extent, these zones are substantial in levels of capital accumulation and economic activity Driving forces Directly tied to immediate metropolitan demand for rural resources, notably: Resource extraction and waste disposal: aggregate, landfill, soil, water supply Agricultural production: market-oriented horticulture and factory farming Consumption: rural residential, country estates, recreational/lifestyle activities Servicing: service corridors and other infrastructure for transport and utilities Core attributes High metropolitan accessibility High land values for both production and consumption uses Multiple land markets with prices augmented by speculative investment seeking capital gains from land use change Substantial investment in infrastructure, but often with rapid depreciation and replacement Heterogeneity and conflict at local scale, notably in locales experiencing rapid change Need for regulation of rural space, specifying allowable uses and levels of nuisance through zoning. Alternative trajectories Localized complexity, with markedly divergent trajectories, often guided by zoning schemes and reflected in differential land markets Marked differentiation between and within amenity-oriented and production-oriented zones Source: Compiled by author.

eastern and southeastern coastal zones and areas around the commuting sheds of each of the major cities. In these areas the population is growing at rates above the national level and the local economies are diversifying and

expanding. On the other hand are the heartland dry farming and pastoral areas of rural and remote Australia which cover the bulk of the continent. In these areas net out-migration is continuing such that absolute population

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Table 5 Marginalized agricultural/pastoral occupance (potential integration of production and protection values) Incidence On marginal and submarginal land, of low productive potential and low resilience (of which Australia has a plentiful supply) In the high rainfall zone, extensive tracts of rugged and/or infertile lands exist along the coast and highlands In the rangelands, extensive submarginal pastoral lands occur across the arid interior and northern tropical savannas In both the high rainfall zone and the rangelands, an earlier era of subdivision has created areas of small, non-viable properties experiencing prolonged economic stress Driving forces Agricultural overcapacity, with these areas becoming increasingly surplus to requirements for production, even when adjusting through disinvestment Economic stress is linked to environmental stress, with an incapacity to mitigate or remediate land degradation Potential for provision of ecosystem services and other protection purposes, yet to be realised Incorporation of protection values is impeded by substantial financial, institutional, political and cultural barriers, strengthened by the continuing identification of landholders with their present lifestyles Core attributes Located in remote areas, lacking infrastructure Incapacity to attract capital, labour and management Reliant upon the survival capacity of existing landholders and a trickle of under-resourced newcomers Alternative trajectories Uncertain futures, with most regions currently in a state of flux Conversion of large tracts to forestry for pulp and woodchips in southern states Lack of success in production should facilitate either conversion to, or integration with, other uses, notably protection purposes High potential for landholders to adapt their production strategies to enhance protection outcomes including provision of ecosystem services, notably sustainable landscape management, protection of biodiversity and threatened species as well as carbon sinks Comparable potential for conversion to protection purposes, translating extensive tracts to conservation/indigenous occupance Publicly sourced income for protection and infrastructure purposes may be supplemented by modest tourism revenues in select destinations Source: Compiled by author.

Table 6 Conservation occupance (protection values emphasised) Incidence Dominantly located on land of negligible production value In the high rainfall zone, these comprise mainly rugged ranges and coastal sandy landscapes In the rangelands, submarginal areas of the arid interior and northern tropical savannas are being transferred to this occupance mode Given Australia’s plentiful supply of such lands, the conservation land estate has been recently expanding, but at a decelerating pace Driving forces Retreat of agriculture and grazing from submarginal lands Growing awareness of environmental stress, threatened species and endangered ecosystems Increased demand for experience with pristine or near-pristine landscapes, including ecotourism Core attributes Generally located on lands of low market value for production or consumption purposes Much retained as pristine or near-pristine natural ecosystems also with wilderness values Lack of public and private infrastructure Alternative trajectories In the ecumene, extensive tracts of rugged uplands and coastal sands are being allocated to conservation, usually with an ill-defined mix of purposes, including ecosystem preservation, recreation, tourism, catchment management and wilderness values In the rangelands, frontier regions, such as Cape York Peninsula, the Darwin and Alice Springs hinterlands and are experiencing land conversion towards a mix of nature conservation and indigenous uses Source: Compiled by author.

decline is common and there is a consequent diminution in both their social and economic potential.

notably between the political economy and the counterurbanization agendas.

Divergent demographic trends, as revealed by Hugo and Bell and by others, provide the most convincing single piece of evidence for identifying this marked spatial dichotomy in the fortunes of rural Australia. In turn, this contributes to compartmentalized research agendas, most

2.1. Localization of rural crisis research in the agricultural heartland Following the 1987 publication of Lawrence’s influential Capitalism and the Countryside: The Rural Crisis in Australia

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Table 7 Indigenous occupance (protection values emphasised) Incidence Continuing occupance of remote ‘empty’ lands, unsuited to pastoralism, formerly held as Aboriginal Reserve or Unoccupied Crown Land, with indigenous ownership only recently achieving legal recognition, under inalienable, non-transferable freehold title, legislated initially in South Australia (1966) and Northern Territory (1976) and subsequently in other jurisdictions Rapid but decelerating land transfers over last two decades, mainly of remote, submarginal pastoral leases, and a few more productive farms Scattered, tenuous recognition of common-law native title, following High Court decisions in Mabo (1992) and Wik (1996) cases Currently embracing over 13 percent of Australia’s land area Driving forces Political and judicial responses to internal and international pressures towards recognition of indigenous rights in western, affluent nations Growing recognition of limited potential of marginal lands, facilitating their transfer from pastoral lease tenures intended for productivist occupance Core attributes Dominantly located on remote, submarginal lands of low market value, but of continuing high value for indigenous occupance Mostly held under inalienable, non-transferable freehold title, held by the traditional owners Multifunctional occupance, with precedence given to protection of indigenous cultural values, tied to land Complex issues in land management, tied to lack of material resources and stresses created between indigenous and non-indigenous cultural values Alternative trajectories The dominant trajectory is indigenous occupance of remote lands of low productive potential and few sources of income, reliant on welfare payments However, in these remote areas there are scattered ‘resource-rich’ communities, gaining income and employment from mining royalties or tourism, and also a few modest pastoral enterprises In the more closely settled ‘ecumene’, indigenous occupance has been recognised only over small land tracts of low income-earning potential but high cultural significance Source: Compiled by author from sources cited in accompanying text.

(Lawrence, 1987), Australian rural research has contributed strongly to ‘the new political economy of agriculture’ (Burch et al., 1999, p. 180). Lawrence’s work was pivotal in the establishment of the Australasian Agri-Food Research Network in 1993, bringing together academics from sociology, geography, economics, political science, gender studies and environmental studies. Certain major themes in this research are reviewed in Rural Sociology 64, 2 1999, Special Issue on Agri-food Restructuring in Australia and New Zealand. A more comprehensive review of current Australian rural sociology is presented by Lockie et al. (2003), who identify four major themes, namely: farm and rural restructuring; food production and consumption; natural resources and sustainability; and rural communities. This has been a rich vein of critical inquiry, inviting purposeful, empirical, applied research, with a strong theoretical base. Australian agriculture still presents an image of efficiency and high productivity, but this image cannot hide a multitude of economic, social and environmental problems. ‘Rural restructuring’ has become synonymous with rural decline and crisis, the central theme in major social science publications (Pritchard and McManus, 2000; Lockie and Bourke, 2001; Gray and Lawrence, 2001). Although not solely concerned with the rural crisis, Australian rural social scientists have been preoccupied with this theme to a much greater extent than their colleagues in the UK, Western Europe or the United States. 2.2. Localization of counterurbanization research on the coast Hugo and Bell, cited earlier, have emphasized the growing dichotomy in population and economic trends

between coastal regions and the inland agricultural heartland. In contrast to the agricultural heartland, the highamenity near-coastal landscapes are providing new modes of income diversification for farming households, together with increasingly influential consumption, exchange and protection values, closely linked to counterurbanization. Australian research into coastal change has been pursued within the counterurbanization discourse, but, as with the agri-food research, no reference is made to the PPT. Instead, the focus has been on the size, composition, sources and destinations of the migrants and on the broad socio-economic trends contributing to the ‘turnaround’. Compared with UK research, much less attention has been given to locality-oriented research at migrant destinations. Also, the small volume of destination research is focussed on coastal townships, which are the prime destinations, with little research on changes in rural localities or in the use of rural space. These divergent research concerns are sharply revealed in Boyle and Halfacree (1998). The 10 chapters focussed on the UK are almost entirely localityoriented and dominated by such pressing UK issues as the ‘contested countryside’, ‘reconstituted rurality’, ‘fragmented localities’, ‘the politics of exclusion’, ‘class colonization’, ‘the exclusive domain of the white middle class’ or ‘dissonance in the search for the rural idyll’. In marked contrast, the Australian chapter is focussed almost exclusively on welfare, retirement and sunbelt migration, with increasing attention to ‘‘ythe central role of disadvantaged groups, especially low income earners and the unemployed, in the drift away from the cities’’ (Hugo and Bell, 1998, p. 127). In contrast to the UK and the USA, contests in Australia are localized and smaller in scale, partly because of the

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much more generous supply of attractive rural space relative to demand and also because most Australian coastal terrain usefully provides a sharp demarcation between agricultural potential and amenity values. Rural contests have rarely focussed on alternative representations of the rural or the ‘politics of exclusion’, save in a few localities where cultural capital, initially generated by lowincome alternative lifestylers and small-scale, niche farmers has subsequently led to ‘commodification of the rural idyll’, characterized by new rounds of investment, escalating real estate values and an increasingly contested countryside as recorded in the Western Australian communities of Denmark (Curry et al., 2001) and Bridgetown (Tonts and Greive, 2002). Similar complex localized transitions towards commodification of the rural idyll are occurring in other prime near-metropolitan locations, as well as the hinterlands of Byron Bay and Coffs Harbour on the NSW North Coast. Much more common are intense contests pursued by conservation activists, seeking to preserve coastal estuaries, mangroves, wetlands, dune systems, headlands and other near-pristine natural ecosystems from development for either production or consumption purposes. The socio-demographic bias in Australian counterurbanization research has also been a logical response to sharply defined migration flows, capable of clear delineation and measurement, in marked contrast to the more dispersed, near-ubiquitous rural migrations in the UK. Also a high proportion of counterurban migration has been attracted to beachside, lakeside or near-coastal townships (Burnley and Murphy, 2004). A focus on these locales has diverted the research gaze away from the nearcoastal rural hinterland, where, in fact, a significant transition has occurred, consistent with the MRT hypothesis, but with some very different ingredients when compared with the UK countryside.

3. Conceptualizing spatial variability driven by the rural transition 3.1. Conceptualizing spatial dynamics and social landscapes: Marsden and Barr In the UK, spatial variability has been conceptualized, primarily by Marsden, but not readily delineated, given local complexity and interpenetration of production, consumption and protection values in the ‘contested countryside’. Marsden (2003, pp. 103–104) has proposed four ideal types which ‘‘ycharacterize the range of outcomes expected to the key economic, social and political processes shaping the countryside (and)yare associated with the social and economic reaction to as well as the articulation of economic change.’ Marsden’s four ideal types are: preserved; contested; paternalistic; and clientelist. These four types have only limited applicability to rural Australia.

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Although specifying processes (‘dynamics’) rather than spatial outcomes, of greater relevance in to the Australian context is Marsden’s (2003, p. 4) exploration of three ‘principle organizing and analytical frameworks for agrofood and rural development’. These ‘competing rural dynamics’ are described as: agro-industrial; post-productivist; and rural development. The first two of these categorizations are tied to major, discernible processes driving rural change, not only in the UK, but generally in affluent societies, the first dynamic being tied to production, and the second to a mix of production and consumption goals. The third dynamic is Marsden’s idealized representation of a postulated reintegration of agriculture with other types of rural development towards a sustainable rural future. Halfacree (1999) offers a more radical vision in which the two capital-dominated modes of ‘spatial practice’, namely ‘super-productivism’ and the ‘rural idyll’ are replaced by ‘‘radical visions of new structural coherence for the countryside’’ (p.73), based in Lefebvre’s proposed ‘counter-space’, opposed to the ‘‘commodified, privatised, segmented and class-ridden character that capitalist abstract space takes when materialised in place’’ (p. 75). Of particular interest is the parallelism with a categorization of three future ‘social landscapes’ in Australia, independently proposed by Barr (2002). Barr’s landscapes are titled: traditional agricultural; amenity; and small farm. In all three conceptualizations, market-driven production and consumption values dominate the first and second categories, whereas the third category is an idealized ‘third way’, reformist in Marsden and radical in Halfacree, in marked contrast to Barr’s empiricism. In Australia, only this author and Barr have proposed landscape classes or regional delineations, tied to emerging multifunctional values. The first of these is my proposed rangelands regionalization, identifying four types of commodity-oriented and three types of amenity-oriented regions, with amenity values including both consumption and protection outcomes (Holmes, 2002). The regionalization task is facilitated by the relative size, homogeneity and lack of complexity of regions in the Australian rangelands. A comparable delineation and mapping at regional scale cannot be so readily undertaken in the Australian ecumene. 3.2. Barr’s analysis of spatial variability and dynamics Barr (2002), however, has made a major contribution towards advancing our understanding of spatial variability and complexity in the current Australian ‘rural transition’. In a detailed enquiry into regional structural differences in Australian agriculture, Barr uses data on farm value of production, farm family income, farm industries, agricultural land use and regional labour use for agriculture. Barr identifies nine main explanatory factors, with the five most significant being: farm size, broadacre industries, family income, mid-sized farms and peri-urban characteristics. Cluster analysis yielded 12 ‘regional’ types (not necessarily

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spatially contiguous). Barr concludes that ‘‘ythe social characteristics of agricultural (sic) landscapes will move in at least three directions, typified as: traditional agricultural, amenity, and small farm based.’’ (p.110). The parallelism, not only with Marsden’s three rural dynamics, but, more generally with critical elements of the PPT, as specified by UK researchers, is striking. Barr and Marsden identify a similar set of core attributes for their agricultural and postproductivist (amenity) dynamics/landscapes. While there is some parallelism in their third category, there are major differences, partly attributable to differing circumstances between UK and Australia, but more so to the differing purposes of these two researchers. Given the comprehensive quantitative evidence used by Barr, his detailed regionalization and profiles of three emerging landscapes according to the relative importance of production versus consumption values, provide a useful foundation for more probing comparative studies into the complexities of rural change in Australia. Barr comments as follows: Currently, demand for landscape amenity is a major influence upon the pattern of structural change in Australian agriculture. The influence is manifest in the high price of land in the more amenable and accessible parts of the rural landscape. These higher land prices restrict the capacity of agriculture to adjust to maintain competitiveness and inexorably drive the path of adjustment to a non-commercial agricultural future. (p. 107). It must be added that Australian agriculture is more vulnerable to dislodgment in a competitive land market, than in either the European Union or the United States, because of the stronger imperative for farmers to pursue cost minimization in order to remain competitive. Of particular value is Barr’s perceptive insight into small farm landscapes. Their value is enhanced by the dearth of Australian research on this theme. Barr considers that small farm landscapes are more prevalent than generally recognised. Barr (2002, p. 22) states that there is ‘‘ya clear relationship between distance from the populated coastal fringe and the economic size of farms. The smallest farms are in the coastal fringe and the great divide stretching from Brisbane south to Melbourne and along the Western Australian coast from Perth to Albany. Competition from other land uses, such as amenity values, has historically reduced the capacity of farm businesses in these districts to increase productivity through expansion based on land purchase. The availability of off-farm work has also reduced the pressure on owners of small farms to follow a productivity strategy based on land purchase’’. In his recently published study of Victoria’s ‘social landscapes’, Barr (2005) provides a uniquely authoritative and comprehensive appraisal of regional variability in rural change in an Australian context. Barr presents detailed evidence on ‘‘ythe social trends that are influencing the

evolution of rural Victoria. It is the interaction of these trends that is creating a patchwork of social landscapes following divergent trajectories.’’ (p. 1). His incisive appraisals of four ‘social landscapes’ are based on quantitative data on such diverse attributes as: farm size, productivity, financial turnover, product mix, technology, marketing; farm aggregation; farmer age, entry, exit, origins, life course, career path; motivation; farm household employment and income sources; local demography, economic structure, population trend and projections; small town sustainability, business activity and attractiveness. Barr’s four ‘social landscapes’ in Victoria differ in critical ways from the three derived from his Australia-wide study. They are titled: production; rural amenity; rural transitional; and irrigation. For comparative purposes, Barr’s first and last landscape categories represent two different trajectories within my postulated productivist agricultural mode; his transitional landscape is a distinctive trajectory, currently being a mix of productivist and marginalized agricultural modes, but with a shift towards pluriactivity, impeded by its low perceived amenity values; while his amenity landscape encompasses three modes, namely amenity, pluriactive and peri-metropolitan in my typology. (In a personal communication, Barr mentions that his cluster analysis yielded a fifth landscape, described as ‘periurban’, but omitted for simplicity.) Of particular value is his depiction of the rural amenity landscape, which is directed mainly towards an examination of the pivotal role of the amenity premium in entrenching the structure of undersized farms, enforcing pluriactivity and part-time farming, for which beef–cattle grazing is the ideal farming activity. Barr is concerned not only to scrutinize incomes, employment and related economic indicators, but also preferences, aspirations and sociodemographic outcomes. Using data on the non-local origins of entering farmers and the age profiles of entering, exiting and continuing farmers, Barr notes that ‘‘Traditional patterns of intergenerational transfer within farms have all but disappeared. Farming has become a lifestyle choice of middle age rather than an inherited apprenticeship for the young.’’ (p. 35). Comparable data from Barr’s production landscape reveals much lower entry rates of older and non-local persons, with local farmers ageing in place, becoming ‘‘fewer, older and male’’ (p. 15). In his Australia-wide study, Barr notes that farm incomes are generally lower in amenity than in production landscapes, but farm family incomes are higher, tied to a higher component of off-farm income. Also the rate of decline in the number of farmers is lower than in the ‘agricultural heartland’. In contrasting these two landscapes, Barr comments that ‘‘It may be a consolidation of the division of rural Australia into high amenity and low amenity locations’’ (p. 68). This amenity-related polarization, reinforced by accessibilty differentials, is becoming more pronounced, as emphasized by Hugo and Bell, cited earlier.

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Also of value are Barr’s contributions in identifying and measuring the ‘amenity premium’ in land markets. The ‘amenity premium’ is approximated by calculating the ratio of land value to gross value of production per hectare. This ratio varies from under two in the low-amenity, remote Mallee District of northwest Victoria to above eight in accessible, high amenity areas, not only near Melbourne, but in the central highlands, the corridor to Albury and the upper Murray. Compared with the UK or New Zealand, Australia’s spaciousness and the ‘tyranny of distance’ ensure a wide spectrum of locationally induced, von Thunen style land values, initially tied to production and marketing costs, but now magnified by an amenity premium. 4. Emerging Australian modes of rural occupance tied to variability in the role of production, consumption and protection values 4.1. Identifying modes of rural occupance Marsden’s and Barr’s conceptualizations of three distinct dynamics/landscapes are pursued further here in proposing a typology of seven core modes of rural occupance identifiable in Australia. These modes were shown in Fig. 1 and are summarized in Tables 1–7. While the depiction of these modes is based on Australian evidence,

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six (excluding indigenous) can be conceptualized as generic modes, categorized according to the relative precedence awarded to production, consumption or protection goals in shaping rural resource use. The positioning of these modes within this triangular relationship is shown in Fig. 2. These positionings are intended to represent idealized types, indicating the postulated proportionate role of each of the three goals within each mode. The three idealized nearmonofunctional modes are displaced away from triangle corners in recognition that, within any locale, there is a mix of goals (potentially scaled using an ‘index of multifunctionality’). At any locale, this mix is variable over time, reflected in a variable positioning in triangular space. Also, as outlined in each table, each mode reveals a high level of variability in the type and intensity of resource use, indicated in the provisional listing of diverse trajectories. A study of Fig. 2 suggests the potential occurrence of a seventh generic mode involving a strong interplay between consumption and protection goals. It can be argued that, in most contexts, the rural amenity mode extends across this space, in acknowledgement of the strong ingredient of landscape protection embedded in this mode. The counterargument is that, in this mode, the protection function is highly selective and subordinate to the consumption function. Accordingly this space can be occupied only by a mode in which the protection function is granted priority at least comparable to, even if exploitable by, the

Fig. 2. Occupance modes in rural Australia, positioned according to the relative weights given to production, consumption and protection values. The depicted modes are: productivist agricultural; marginalized agricultural; pluriactive; peri-metropolitan; amenity; and conservation-indigenous.

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consumption function. It appears that this variant of the ‘commodification of nature’ has emerged most clearly in prime lifestyle and tourist destinations still retaining elements of pristine landscapes. This ‘commodified nature’ mode is not delineated here, in the belief that it is not sufficiently developed in Australia, save possibly in localized tourist and lifestyle destinations such as the Blue Mountains and the Wet Tropics. Walker (2003, p. 17) provides a case study in American West, where ‘‘aesthetic environmental ideologies are not ‘obstacles’ to capitalist accumulation; rather, they are at the core of a new kind of capitalism.’’ It may be argued that this postulated ‘commodified nature’ mode can be differentiated from the rural amenity mode, not only in the balance of priorities between consumption and protection, but also in the imagery of valued landscapes, with the former being concerned with preserving ‘pristine nature’ and the latter the ‘rural idyll’ya matter worth further enquiry. Any reference to the American West must inevitably suggest the need to recognize another generic mode of occupance, which matches the peri-metropolitan mode in its contests between production, consumption and protection values, but differs markedly in other critical attributes. The doctrine of multiple use, explicitly including production, consumption and protection goals, is embedded within the legislated functions of the extensive federal lands of western United States, held by the Bureau of Land Management and the National Forest Service. This involves a spatially variable mix of all three goals, providing an arena for intense contests between heterogeneous production, consumption and protection constituencies. See, among a voluminous list of relevant publications, Hess (1992) and Loomis (1993). The presence of this public resource has also intensified contests on adjoining private land, awarded an exceptionally high amenity premium by easy access to federal lands. Walker (2003, p. 17) points out that ‘‘these conflicts reflect underlying tensions between competing capitalisms that commodify nature in incompatible ways’’ with ‘‘consumption-based rural capitalism’’ clashing with ‘‘older production-based capitalisms’’. As described in Section 5.1, Australia’s most marginal pastoral lands, listed under marginalized agricultural/ pastoral occupance in Table 5, are experiencing a modest trend towards complex multifunctionality, encompassing all three goals, as distinctive styles of outback tourism become increasingly important to local economies. There are parallels with the American rangelands, but with much lower intensities of capital flows and resource use, also lacking a legislated doctrine of multiple uses. This distinctive potential of marginal (or frontier) lands for multifunctional occupance suggests the need to enter a further dimension, intensity of use, into the simple triangular model presented in Fig. 2. The triangular model depicts a constant-sum sharing of the land resource between the three generalized functions. However, the near-identical, near-equal allocation to all three

functions in both the peri-metropolitan and the ‘frontier’ modes suggests that, at least for these two postulated modes, their contemporary evolution is contingent upon their position at the opposite extremes in the intensity of demand on rural spaceyagain a matter worth further exploration. The emergence of seven identifiable broadscale modes of rural occupance (or ‘social landscapes’) can be interpreted as the increasingly differentiated territorial expression of the multifunctional transition, displacing the formerly near-ubiquitous productivist agricultural mode. Until the final quarter of the 20th century, all other modes were localised and/or subordinate to productivist modes. In Australia, the dynamics of this transition merit further exploration, beyond the cursory attention given by Barr and by this author, cited earlier, and the necessarily brief overviews presented in Section 5. In Australia, the most conspicuous territorial expression of the transition has been tied to the legislated and judicial recognition of indigenous land ownership, leading to new land titles, substantial land transfers and innovative modes of governance, as outlined in Table 7. For an authoritative contemporary overview of the status of indigenous land titles, by which ‘‘(t)raditional owners of country are shaping new geographies as they engage with the native title claim process’’, see Davies (2003, quote from p.41). Also see Keon-Cohen (2001). For discussion of related governance and land management issues, see Cane and Stanley (1985); Young et al. (1991); Johnston (1994) and Baker et al. (2000). For traditional owners seeking to maintain their culture, land occupance continues to be founded on embedded, intrinsic multifunctional values, as noted earlier for subsistence societies. However, of necessity, production values are diminished while protection values require greater attention and more overt management than required in pre-colonial indigenous occupance. While the characterization and mapping of conservation and indigenous modes can be readily documented, evidence on the attributes, incidence, driving forces and trajectories of the other five modes, described in Tables 1–5, is more fugitive and derivative. The most comprehensive, authoritative evidence is provided in Barr’s research, cited earlier. Barr’s detailed empirical research yields interpretations consistent with those presented in this paper, even if his ‘social landscapes’ classification does not coincide exactly with that proposed here. There is a challenge in undertaking further enquiry into the validity and utility of the conceptualization of occupance modes, as proposed here. In the first of a short series of case studies, this writer has presented evidence on the emergence of five markedly differentiated occupance modes in the Lockyer Valley, in south-eastern Queensland. These five modes are identified and mapped in local government strategic plans, with zoning regulations supportive of the emerging mix of production, consumption and protection values (Holmes, 2005).

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4.2. Recognizing differentiated trajectories within modes As shown in all seven tables, intensity and type of resource use is recognized as one of the critical attributes leading to marked variability within each mode, indicated by the identification of alternative trajectories. This variability in relative resource value is usually reflected in market values of land for either production or consumption purposes, also inversely offering opportunities for protection outcomes. This variability in turn is tied to environmental attributes (site potential for production, consumption or protection purposes) and locational attributes (accessibility) and influenced by antecedent modes and trajectories in human occupance. Partly as an outcome of its large areal extent, Australia exhibits high variability, both environmentally and locationally, with variability in resource use being reinforced by capital accumulation at the most favoured locations. High capital mobility and the ‘geographical transfer of value’ are commonly regarded as pivotal to contemporary processes of capital accumulation. These processes are reinforcing the gradients of uneven development, which have long been characteristic of the Australian space-economy as an adaptive response not only to resource limitations but also to the ‘tyranny of distance’ (Robinson, 1963; Blainey, 1966). Space limitations preclude detailed exposition on the complexities of contemporary modes and trajectories depicted in the tables. Instead, the value of this conceptualization of multifunctionality is explored by brief case studies. 5. Case studies of rural change tied to the multifunctional transition 5.1. Transitions within and between modes In Australia, rural transitions, either within an occupance mode or between modes, may occur more rapidly than in countries with more entrenched investment of human resources (including capital) in existing modes of use. Rapid change may be propelled by new rounds of investment at modest levels, or, in many critical situations, by agricultural or pastoral redundancy leading to disinvestment, facilitating a shift from agricultural to other occupance modes. Disinvestment leading to multifunctional transitions is currently most evident in marginal pastoral regions where ‘‘lack of success in pursuit of productivist goals enhances capability in satisfying post-productivist values’’ (Holmes, 2002, p. 364). In the Northern Territory’s Gulf Country, the rapid switch from pastoral dominance to multifunctional occupance, with the swift emergence of indigenous, conservation and tourism uses, has been documented by this writer (Holmes, 1990, 2002). A parallel transition has occurred in Cape York Peninsula and the northern Kimberley, and, to a lesser extent on the pastoral lands

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of the Alice Springs and Lake Eyre regions. These are generally shown as frontier regions in my rangeland regionalization (Holmes, 2002) and are in transition from marginalized pastoral towards multifunctional pastoral/ tourism/conservation/indigenous occupance. Comparable localized disinvestment has been widespread on marginal grazing lands in the ecumene, summarized in Table 5. In contrast to these marginal regions, where pastoral investment has been flimsy, certain more entrenched pastoral regions are experiencing economic and environmental stress, yet remain trapped within marginalized occupance, unable either to adjust towards long-term viability through property build-up or to achieve multifunctional outcomes. These include much of western New South Wales, southwest Queensland and the GascoyneMurchison Region in Western Australia. In spite of negative net incomes and heavy debt burdens, graziers in these regions show a strong determination to maintain their existing way of life (Fitzhardinge, 2001). Government-funded regional adjustment strategies reveal a shift away from industry-oriented, productivist goals towards regional sustainability driven by multifunctional outcomes. The South-West Queensland Strategy, initiated in the 1980s, provided a package of support programmes towards economically viable pastoralism, including debt reconstruction, property build-up and assisted exit from unviable enterprises (Queensland: Department of Primary Industries, 1994). The Gascoyne-Murchison Strategy, initiated since 2000, has entirely different goals and support programmes. There is an ‘‘yambitious visionyto achieve a socially and economically viable community involved in a diverse range of industries under the banner of ‘creating a new lease on life’’’ (Harper, 2005, p. 1). This involves support for enhanced pastoral management, enterprise diversification, particularly into tourism and niche products, and transfer of ten percent of pastoral land into conservation reserves. 5.2. Multifunctional impulses on the subtropical coastal zone This incapacity to adjust (or to achieve a multifunctional transition) is in marked contrast to the rapid transition experienced over 30 years earlier in the high-amenity, accessible coastal zone of northern New South Wales and southern Queensland. In this subtropical zone, agronomic difficulties led to a more rapid retreat of dairyfarming and ensured a more rapid transition than that reported by Barr (2005, pp. 24–40) for the comparable Victorian social landscape. By the 1950s, it was clear that dairyfarming, the mainstay of the rural economy in this subtropical zone, was trapped in a spiral of pasture deterioration, declining productivity, low incomes, apathy and disinvestment, arising from an incapacity to resolve the agronomic problems tied to soil and pasture management in a subtropical climate. In 1962 this writer concluded that: ‘‘ywith increasing economic and technical problems, the persistence of dairying on North Coast farms appears to

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stem in large measure from an inability to find an alternative form of land use readily adapted to the present farm pattern’’ (Holmes, 1962, p. 220). The entry of the UK into the European Union in 1972, and the end of commonwealth trade preference on Australian dairy products, together with the mounting burdens of capital investment in pasture, feed, livestock and milk processing and storage, forced the termination of dairy farming on over 90 percent of farms in this zone. The rapid loss of production values, combined with newly recognised highly prized consumption values, propelled a rapid, comprehensive transition, rarely paralleled elsewhere in western societies (and in sharp contrast to the current incapacity of stressed pastoral regions, described above). As in Victoria, almost all dairy closures were accompanied by a switch to low-input, part-time beef cattle grazing, requiring negligible investment and releasing farm families to engage in alternative activities, including modest farm diversification, off-farm employment, (increasingly available), welfare support or semi-retirement (described by Barr as ‘‘beef in a beautiful landscape’’). The increasing amenity premium and consumption-oriented investment on rural land has constrained farm amalgamations, precluding full-time farming and driving pluriactivity as the dominant mode. However, complexity in terrain and accessibility is now matched by complexity in types of occupance, with all five occupance modes being evident, other than peri-metropolitan. Also, for amenity and pluriactive occupance modes, there is added complexity in trajectories, including all shown in Tables 2 and 3. Most notable has been the capacity of the subtropical coast and immediate hinterland not only to retain its population, but to become the leading destination for amenity-oriented migration, with a strong welfare component. In their analysis of the net migration profiles for New South Wales, (Hugo and Bell, 1998, pp. 125–126) note that coastal regions, particularly the North Coast achieved net migration gains ‘‘strongly biased to the lower end of the income spectrum’’. O’Connor and Stimson (1996) conceptualize this shift in terms of an increasing disarticulation between demographic trends on the one hand and economic trends on the other hand. Retirees and welfare recipients are a major element in this ‘sunbelt’ migration attracted by substantially lower housing and living costs in attractive locations. Nationally, the lowest average incomes and highest welfare dependency are concentrated in the rapidly growing local government areas of the north coast of New South Wales and non-metropolitan southeast Queensland. The low-income production-oriented drudgery of the ‘productivist’ dairy-farming era has been replaced by an alternative low-income, ‘post-productivist’ lifestyle, involving a heterogeneous mix of locals, retirees, welfare recipients and alternative lifestylers. Sharp disparities in wealth are emerging, with the more affluent arrivals seeking positional value on prime coastal sites and in the scenic hinterlands of Port Macquarie, Coffs Harbour, Byron Bay, Gold Coast and Sunshine Coast.

5.3. Complexity and heterogeneity associated with rural amenity and pluriactive joint occupance Of the seven occupance modes, shown in Tables 1–7, the most complex, variable and dynamic is peri-metropolitan occupance, so much so that it has been the focus of substantial research, concerned with strategies in land-use planning and conflict resolution (Sinclair, 1999; Ford, 2001; Fisher, 2003; Bunker and Houston, 2003). Much less attention has been directed towards amenity occupance and pluriactive occupance. Also, in many locales, these two modes are so intermingled that separate delineation is not achievable. Such zones are characterized by a complex mix of amenity (residential), part-time-, pluriactive-, specialized-, niche- or factory-farming uses. Adjacent holdings may support widely divergent uses according to the personal attributes, needs and financial resources of the occupants and, equally, may experience rapid change as these personal circumstances change. The complex dynamics of rural occupance in these localities can only be understood by fine-grained research relating landscape dynamics to ‘individual domestic practices’ on each landholding, as pursued by Paquette and Domon (2003) in their exploration of ‘changing ruralities and changing landscapes’ in southern Quebec. Noting an ‘‘increasing dissociation between agricultural and socio-demographic trajectories’’, leading to increasingly ‘‘dissimilar influences on evolving landscape dynamics’’, the authors identify a challenge to planning policies ‘‘to guide the landscape’s evolution for the benefit of its ‘producers’ and ‘consumers’’’ (Paquette and Domon, 2003, p. 425). These two complex and increasingly significant modes have been widely researched in the UK but surprisingly neglected in Australia, save only for the locality studies in Western Australia by Curry et al. (2001) and by Tonts and Greive (2002), cited earlier. These zones are susceptible to rapid, unpredictable, divergent and dissonant change, more so than any other urban or rural territory other than the perimetropolitan zones. Here is a challenging research area, also of considerable theoretical and applied value, awaiting substantial research input. 6. Contests, actors, power relations 6.1. A complex geography of power, contest and participation ‘‘In future, a local space will have to be understood not in terms of its constituent elements, but in terms of possible combinations of externally determined forces able to confer value on it.’’ (Mormont, 1990, p.32). The emerging complex, variable geography of multifunctional rural occupance is paralleled by an equally complex geography of ‘‘ypower, contest and participation, reflecting change both in the wider political economy and in localised social relations.’’ (Cloke and Goodwin, 1993, p. 27). This theme has long been pursued in a wealth

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of publication on the American West, with new theoretical insights based on political ecology proposed by Walker (2003), cited earlier. It has also been vigorously pursued by UK researchers. See, for example, the UK chapters in Boyle and Halfacree (1998) and Little’s (2001) review of the ‘‘so-called ‘new governance’’’. Wilson (2004, p. 462), in his appraisal of the Landcare movement in Australia has recently termed this shift in power relations as postproductivist rural governance. The Australian context is further scrutinized in a forthcoming review, which also recognizes that the distinctive occupance modes, as proposed in this present paper, provide ‘‘a more subtle way of describing the landscape’’ and present the ‘‘opportunity of developing new policy settings.’’ (Lockie et al., 2005, p. 38). However, little attention has been given to geographic variability in the thrust of these contests, in the goals of participants, in power relations and outcomes, and, specifically, in the extent to which these may parallel variability in modes and trajectories of rural occupance. In his construction of ‘new rural territories’, Marsden identifies ‘‘four distinct types of rural social and political formation’’ (preserved, contested, paternalistic and clientelist) as arenas for contests involving ‘‘four key spheres associated with rural land development (mass food markets, quality food markets, agriculturally related changes and non-agricultural rural restructuring). Marsden observes: Within each of the differentiated rural spaces different local/non-local social configurations of networks and actors are developed, and these are aligned to the separate development spheres identified here. These configurations allow relative power to be distributed in different ways, such that the power geometry of each rural space creates different governance and regulatory issues and processes. (Marsden, 1998, p. 114). Marsden’s insights into the ‘‘polyvalent rural scene and regulatory structure’’ (p. 107) are in marked contrast to simplistic constructs such as those cited in Wilson (2001, p. 93) proposing either a dualism, such as the ‘‘two-track countryside’’, or a unilinear spectrum, such as ‘‘agrarianism–environmentalism’’ or ‘superproductivism/rural idyll’’. Complexity within multifunctional occupance, with marked variability in trajectories within modes, does not lend itself to such simplistic categorization. Within the Australian rangelands some of this complexity was described in Holmes (2002, pp. 372–375), yet outside the rangelands there is greater variability and complexity. Complexity at the local scale is examined in a case study focussing on the Lockyer Valley (Holmes, 2005). Although incomplete and capable of encompassing only one dimension in multidimensional contexts, the spectrum analogy, applied to the relative power or importance of two contending interests, can at times provide a useful, partial appraisal of appropriate (or probable) outcomes. For example, in core pastoral regions, such as the Barkly Tableland, productivist pastoral interests continue to

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prevail, with little input from indigenous or conservation interests, whereas the tenuous hold of pastoralism on Cape York Peninsula has prompted pastoralists to participate actively in formulating a Heads of Agreement with indigenous and conservation groups, further enabling land transfers and enhancing the management roles of the latter two groups. However, as apparent in the above example, it is not solely a matter of attaching relative weights in a supposedly zero-sum game. The alignments of rural producers and conservationists are not necessarily reversed and on some rural issues, such as Landcare, they have at times found common ground. In any case, none of these supposed interest groups is monolithic. 6.2. The geography of conservation activity in Queensland: responses to divergent modes of occupance The emerging complex geography of ‘power, contest and participation’ is well revealed in the complex, occasionally convoluted, activities of the so-called ‘conservation movement’ in Queensland. Conservation-oriented organisations and informal groups have proliferated over the last three decades, involving two international and two major national organisations, as well as one statewide society with many local branches, and a multiplicity of local groups, markedly differentiated in purpose, ideals, actions, scale, membership, strength, durability and effectiveness. In addition there are government-sponsored groups designed to reconcile production and conservation goals. The most prominent is the national Landcare movement, but there are many others. All this has led to an increasingly complex ‘geography of conservation activity’ that closely parallels the geography of occupance modes and trajectories tied to the multifunctional transition. Cape York Peninsula is a zone with flimsy pastoral occupance, similar to that described for the Northern Territory Gulf Country (Holmes, 1990). It is experiencing a partial transition from marginalized pastoral towards conservation and indigenous occupance. Over the last three decades, the area under pastoral leases has declined from over 80 percent to under 55 percent, with more transfers planned. Concerted, ongoing, metropolitan-based conservation campaigns, undertaken at the national level, have given the peninsula icon status as a near-pristine ‘wilderness’ of global significance, commanding federal and state programmes facilitating an exceptionally rapid transfer of extensive tracts to indigenous and conservation tenures. Given the strength of these non-local forces, an unlikely, uneasy alliance of local pastoral and indigenous interests has sought to ensure a continuing role in the allocation, management and use of local resources (Baird, 1996). The Mulga Country of south-west Queensland is another zone of marginalized but entrenched pastoralism, currently experiencing economic, social and environmental stress, propelled by over-optimistic subdivision into non-viable

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holdings (Cameron and Blick, 1991, Queensland: Department of Primary Industries, 1994). In contrast to Cape York, the transition towards conservation occupance is impeded by existing investment in pastoralism and related service infrastructure, also sustained by the determination of landholders to maintain their existing way of life. This, together with degraded conservation values, has precluded any concerted campaign towards a substantial land transfer to conservation tenures. Instead, the Mulga Country has become one component, though of critical importance, in statewide conservation campaigns to restrict broad-scale tree-clearing, reduce grazing pressures, and preserve kangaroos and other indigenous species. These are modest but important steps towards multifunctionality, giving more emphasis to conservation values, within a pastoral-oriented mode of occupance. Federal and state intervention has been directed primarily towards maintaining pastoralism through a jointly funded adjustment scheme, with goals and programmes entirely different to those pursued in Cape York. Immediately to the north, the open grasslands of the Central Downs are a core pastoral zone of continuing productivist agricultural occupance. Although not without problems, and singularly bereft of conservation reserves, it has not attracted the attention of any major conservation organization, seemingly in the absence of any issue or cause capable of attracting public support. Conservation efforts are modest and remain the responsibility of local producerdominated Landcare groups. The Sugar Coast, extending in separated tracts from north of Cairns almost to Brisbane, would also attract little attention from conservationists, were it not for its proximity to high-value amenity and conservation modes, and particularly for its negative impacts on streams, estuaries, coastlines and the offshore Great Barrier Reef. This translates to national-level concerns expressed not only by conservationists, but by increasingly powerful recreation and tourism industries, leading to intervention by state and federal governments, with the reef inscribed on the World Heritage list and managed by the Great Barrier Reef Marine Park Authority, a joint-federal and state organization. The agronomic practices of sugar growers and land management of pastoralists are under close scrutiny in recognition of the substantial economic and conservation values of adjoining coastal and offshore ecosystems. The Wet Tropics, adjacent to Cairns, attract a comparable level of activity from the same sources, also with World Heritage listing and under a joint management authority. As with the Great Barrier Reef, institutional change was externally generated, prompted by a sense of pending crisis (Lane and McDonald, 2002). In this case the focus is on minimizing human impacts on unique pristine terrestrial ecosystems, primarily rainforests. Again, the strong conservation focus stems from an alliance between conservationists and other powerful interests, notably tourism, tied to emerging multifunctional modes of

occupance, with a close juxtaposition of agricultural, amenity, pluriactive, conservation and indigenous modes. In south-east Queensland an extensive peri-metropolitan zone, adjoining Brisbane, the Gold Coast and the Sunshine Coast urban areas, has become the arena for the proliferation of contests between and among developers, government agencies, local enterprises, residents, farmers and conservationists. Most contests are localized in time and space, involving shifting, short-lived coalitions, with conservation campaigns being greatly strengthened by the NIMBY (not in my back yard) phenomenon. On most critical attributes, conservation goals, methods and logistics are of a genre entirely different to those adopted in Cape York Peninsula. Also, in contrast to the Sugar Coast and Wet Tropics, contests, though intense, are localized, rarely engaging active attention from national organisations or the federal government. These differences can appropriately be interpreted according to geographical differences in the modes and trajectories of rural occupance in the contemporary multifunctional transition. Where extensive, valued zones achieve icon status, so the scale, intensity and durability of conservation campaigns are enhanced, calling for national and international attention. In Queensland, this has been most clearly evident with Cape York Peninsula, the Wet Tropics and the Great Barrier Reef. However, relative success appears to be inversely related to the strength of local production-oriented occupance modes, with the pace of change being most rapid in the Peninsula. 7. Conclusion While rural researchers, mainly in Britain, have accepted that the direction, complexity and pace of rural change merit recognition as a significant transition, there has been increasing disagreement in conceptualizing and naming the transition, with the early favourite, ‘post-productivism’ under critical scrutiny. In this paper, the case is made that the core impulse is the decisive move from a near-universal monofunctional mode of rural occupance in which production values, notably agricultural, held sway, and towards complex, often dynamic and contested multifunctional modes, involving a variable mix of consumption and protection values, alongside production. Complexity and variability in space and time is leading to greater heterogeneity in values, goals and uses at all scales; rural holding; locality; topographic unit; region; bioclimatic zone; and nation. Rural and agrarian change in Australia has been the focus of intense, multidisciplinary research over the last two decades, with a strong theoretical and applied thrust. This research has addressed the most critical issues confronting rural Australia, including: environmental fragility, vulnerability and degradation; salinity; water scarcity, misuse and management; threats to biodiversity; potential impacts of, and responses to, climatic change; genetic engineering; environmental governance and the role

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of interest groups; globalization, agricultural subsumption and corporate control; neoliberalizm and rural service withdrawal; disadvantaged localities and groups; and population loss and regional decline in the agricultural heartland. Yet this research has lacked any conceptual framework, capable of placing its findings within the increasingly complex, dynamic geography of ongoing rural change in Australia. It has been argued here that any interpretation of changes in the ownership, valuation, use and management of rural landscapes, at any scale from nationwide to individual holding, can be enhanced if conceptualized within the transition towards multifunctionality in values and uses. Allied to this conceptualization is the identification of distinctive modes of human occupance, according to the relative precedence given to production, consumption or protection values. Within these modes there is marked variability in the type and intensity of resource use, recognizable as alternative trajectories. Contests, actions and power relations of interest groups are closely aligned to the modes and trajectories of rural occupance. A case can be made that, save only for indigenous occupance, the distinctive modes are generic types, characteristic of contemporary rural occupance in affluent western nations. However, rarely would these modes be as clearly delineated as is commonly the case in Australia. Australia provides ample space, with this space also markedly differentiated in its potentials for production, consumption or protection use. This leads to parallel differentiation in occupance modes. This is most evident in the rangelands (Holmes, 2002), but much less so in increasingly contested coastal and peri-metropolitan locales, characterized by high values attached to all three basic uses. Similar contests appear to be characteristic of much of the British countryside, with exceptionally high values attached to both production and consumption uses and also with proximity to urban services, consumers and jobs, encouraging pluriactivity. This can lead to a fine-grained mix of productivist agricultural, pluriactive and amenity modes, also generating substantial, albeit selective, conservation outcomes, comparable to those evident within peri-metropolitan occupance in Australia. This complexity impedes the spatial delineation and representation of clearly identifiable occupance modes. However, it does not preclude the characterization of localities according to the relative mix of modes and trajectories currently prevailing, tied to the intensity and precedence given to production, consumption and protection values. Such characterization is a necessary concomitant to the concept of a multifunctional transition. The concept of a multifunctional rural transition invites positioning within current theory on the role of place and space in contemporary society. This author has not explored this challenging issue, beyond noting that the postulated changing relativities between production, consumption and protection values in the allocation and

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management of rural space may well be an expression of wider directions in contemporary society. However, such an exploration lies beyond the compass of the present paper. Acknowledgments I am grateful for the thoughtful responses to a first draft made by Neil Argent, Neil Barr, Martin Bell, George Curry, Roy Jones, Geoffrey Lawrence, Richard Le Heron, John Quiggin, Peter Smailes, Jim Walmsley and three anonymous referees. All have provided insightful comments reflected in the amended script. My thanks also to Bal Saini for his valued assistance. References Argent, N., 2002. From pillar to post? In search of the post-productivist countryside in Australia. Australian Geographer 33, 97–114. Baird, M., 1996. A 2020 vision for Cape York Peninsula: a story of 40,000 years plus 200. In: Ash, A. (Ed.), The Future of Tropical Savannas: an Australian Perspective. CSIRO, Melbourne, pp. 159–164. Baker, R., Davies, J., Young, E., 2000. Working on Country: Contemporary Indigenous Management of Australia’s Lands and Coastal Regions. OUP, Melbourne. Barr, N., 2002. Structural change in Australian agriculture: implications for natural resource management. Australia: National Land and Water Audit. Theme Six. Website http://www.nre.vic.gov.au/agvic/ profiles/clpr.htm Barr, N., 2005. The Changing Social Landscape of Rural Victoria. Department of Primary Industries, Melbourne. Blainey, G., 1966. The Tyranny of Distance. Sun Books, Melbourne. Boyle, P., Halfacree, K. (Eds.), 1998. Migration into Rural Areas: Theories and Issues. Wiley, Chichester. Bunker, R., Houston, P., 2003. Prospects for the rural-urban fringe in Australia: observations from a brief history of the landscapes around Sydney and Adelaide. Australian Geographical Studies 41, 303–323. Burch, D., Goss, J., Lawrence, G. (Eds.), 1999. Restructuring Global and Regional Agriculture: Transformations in Australasian Economies and Spaces. Ashgate, Aldershot. Burnley, I., Murphy, P., 2004. Sea Change: Movement from Metropolitan to Arcadian Australia. UNSW Press, Sydney. Cameron, J., Blick, R., 1991. Pastoralism in the Queensland mulga lands. In: Cameron, J., Elix, J. (Eds.), Recovering Ground: A Case Study Approach to Ecologically Sustainable Rural Land Management. Australian Conservation Foundation, Melbourne, pp. 75–116. Cane, S., Stanley, O., 1985. Land Use and Resources in Desert Homelands. North Australia Research Unit, Darwin. Cloke, P., Goodwin, M., 1993. Regulation, green politics and the rural. In: Harper, S. (Ed.), The Greening of Rural Policy: International Perspectives. Belhaven, London, pp. 27–41. Curry, G.N., Koczberski, G., Selwood, J., 2001. Cashing out, cashing in: rural change on the south coast of Western Australia. Australian Geographer 32, 109–124. Davies, J., 2003. Contemporary geographies of indigenous rights and interests in rural Australia. Australian Geographer 19, 19–45. Dodge, R.E., 1938. The interpretation of sequent occupance. Annals of the Association of American Geographers 28, 233–237. Evans, N., Morris, C., Winter, M., 2002. Conceptualizing agriculture: a critique of post-productivism as the new orthodoxy. Progress in Human Geography 26, 313–332. Fisher, T., 2003. Differentiation of growth processes in a peri-urban region: an Australian case study. Urban Studies 40, 551–565. Fitzhardinge, G., 2001. The Western Land Act post 2000. The Rangeland Journal 23, 25–32.

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