Public policy, private landholders: Perspectives on policy mechanisms for sustainable land management

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Journal of Environmental Management 85 (2007) 986–998 www.elsevier.com/locate/jenvman

Public policy, private landholders: Perspectives on policy mechanisms for sustainable land management Chris Cocklin, Naomi Mautner, Jacqui Dibden School of Geography & Environmental Science, Monash University, Australia Received 15 December 2005; received in revised form 23 July 2006; accepted 6 November 2006 Available online 8 January 2007

Abstract A variety of tools can be employed in support of environmental policy objectives, but achieving preferred outcomes also requires the cooperation of private landholders and others with vested interests in the land. The Land Stewardship project in the state of Victoria, Australia, is an initiative devoted to exploring the ways in which private landholders could be encouraged towards more sustainable land management. Following the view that the success of policy initiatives is contingent on effective stakeholder engagement, a component of the Land Stewardship project involved a dialogue with landholders about policy tools (e.g., regulation, economic instruments) that might be deployed to encourage improved land management practices. This paper provides an account of the views and attitudes of landholders, as revealed in a series of three workshops, which consisted of discussions about the factors influencing agriculture, participants’ interpretations of sustainability, and policy methods. The focus of the paper is on what landholders believe to be the strengths and limitations of standard policy tools, and the essential requirements for these tools to deliver the best land management outcomes. One of the main findings of the project was a ‘preference hierarchy’ in respect of policy methods, according to which the strongest support was expressed for voluntary and education-based tools, followed by market-based instruments, with command-andcontrol regulation identified as a measure of ‘last resort’. In the paper we reflect also on how the views and outlook of landholders should be positioned relative to other inputs in the design of policy interventions. r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Keywords: Sustainable agriculture; Land management; Ecosystem services; Policy mechanisms

1. Introduction Recent assessments of the state of Australia’s environment, particularly its land and water resources, paint a picture of serious decline (Cocklin, 2005). Gray and Lawrence (2001) suggest that the origins of ecological unsustainability lie in the application of European farming techniques in an environment to which they are inherently unsuited. In recent times, market liberalisation, the costprize squeeze and the increasing influence of multinational agrifood companies have exacerbated long-standing patterns of environmental degradation (Dibden and Cocklin, 2005). Significantly, it is not only the environment that suffers—literally millions of dollars of production are lost each year because of environmental degradation, impacting Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 3 9905 2926; fax: +61 3 9905 2948.

E-mail address: [email protected] (C. Cocklin). 0301-4797/$ - see front matter r 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2006.11.009

adversely on farmers, their communities and Australia’s export potential. The Council of Australian Governments estimated the investment of public funds required to arrest land and water degradation at $3.7 billion annually (Sammon and Thomson, 2003, p. 15). Despite these concerns, the Industry Commission (1998, p. 5) found that: ‘‘Australian governments have yet to put in place a comprehensive, integrated and far-sighted way of promoting the ecologically sustainable management of natural resources in agriculture’’. The dominant policy emphasis on ‘good business management’ in farming is at odds with environmental responsibility, providing little incentive for landholders to engage in practices contributing to the public good (Dibden and Cocklin, 2005). However, there are signs of a shift by governments at both state and federal levels towards acceptance that farmers cannot be expected to bear the burden alone for public good environmental work (VCMC/DSE, 2003). The

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Productivity Commission (2004, p. 205), for example, has pointed out that while ‘‘it is reasonable to expect landholders to bear the costs of actions that largely benefit them individually or as a group y they should not be expected to meet the costs of supplying public-good environmental services that are demanded by, and largely benefit, the whole community’’. Establishing the necessary conditions for farmers to provide ‘ecosystem services’, as well as being producers of food and fibre, necessitates new kinds of policy settings, and there are positive signs of some imaginative thinking in this respect. In the state of Victoria, the Land Stewardship project was a policy initiative devoted to exploring the ways in which private landholders could be encouraged towards more sustainable land management, including the provision of ecosystem services. One component of the Land Stewardship project involved a dialogue with landholders about policy tools (e.g., regulation, economic instruments) that might be deployed in support of improved land management practices. In this paper we provide an account of the views and attitudes of landholders, as revealed in these discussions. We focus on what landholders believe to be the strengths and limitations of standard policy tools, and what they consider to be the essential requirements for these tools to deliver the best land management outcomes. An explicit assumption of the work was that an understanding of the outlook and opinions of private landholders is an essential input to public policy decisions about the environment. As important as this input is, we reflect towards the end of the paper on how these views should be positioned alongside other factors in policy design. 2. Sustainable land management, policy mechanisms and landholder engagement Policy makers can call upon an array of mechanisms to encourage sustainable land management practices (Fig. 1). The main categories of policy instruments are regulation (‘command-and-control’), price-based (economic) instruments (MBIs), voluntary approaches, and education and information (Barde and Smith, 1997; Brown and Corbera,

Fig. 1. Policy mechanisms. Source: Adapted from Young et al. (1996).

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2003; Pierce, 1996; Sterner, 2003; Young et al., 1996). The approaches are not mutually exclusive: all rely to some extent on education and information provision, which is signified in Fig. 1 by the central placement of this category. Voluntary approaches include self-regulation, and economic instruments may be underpinned by regulation. In concert with the changing nature of environmental governance generally (Goodwin, 1998; Lewis et al., 2002; Rhodes, 1996), the balance in the use of these instruments is changing from a predominant reliance on regulatory methods to a much greater resort to market-based and voluntary approaches (Jenkins et al., 2004; Mansfield, 2006). According to Lewis et al. (2002, p. 106), ‘‘greater responsibility has been transferred to the individual, either directly through the market as a policy instrument or through policy discourses individualising the primary responsibility for land management’’. In Australia, as in many other places, environmental management has historically relied on the use of public regulation, which is often associated with ‘command-andcontrol’ instruments such as zoning, discharge standards, licensing, bans or limits on inputs and outputs, and requirements in terms of technology and design. Despite their widespread use, regulatory measures are considered in some quarters to be inflexible, intrusive and inefficient, and they have often failed to change the behaviour of private landholders (Gumley, 2001; Whitten et al., 2003), prompting a ‘‘fundamental policy reassessment and a search for new directions’’ (Young et al., 1996, p. 105). Accordingly, in recent years, there has been a trend in many western nations towards industry self-regulation, in which private interests, rather than the state, regulate to protect the public good (Barde and Smith, 1997; Flynn and Marsden, 1995; Sterner, 2003). Examples of private interest regulatory mechanisms include industry codes of practice, environmental certification, eco-labelling programmes and agreements between interest groups and industry. Although there is no legal enforcement, governments can influence the design, implementation and impact of private regulation in a variety of ways (Gouldson and Murphy, 1998). Ross and Rowan-Robinson (1997, p. 121) suggest that private regulation ‘‘operating concurrently with public regulation, is of growing importance’’. Similarly, Cocklin and Blunden (1997, p. 32) refer to the ‘‘increasing emphasis on individual responsibility and on private-interest regulation in relation to agriculture, food products, land management and other aspects of rural systems’’, and the growing interest in quality control codes and certification systems (see also Dibden and Cocklin, 2005; Higgins et al., 2007; Perry et al., 1997). These are ‘‘intrinsically a part of private regulation and it seems that they will increasingly become a feature of the regulation of ‘sustainable’ production systems’’ (Cocklin and Blunden, 1997, p. 33). In Australia, the Industry Commission (1998, p. 6) recommended a greater reliance on self-regulation and voluntary standards together with a statutory duty of care for the environment, where ‘‘everyone who could influence

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the risk of environmental harm should be required to take all reasonable and practical steps to prevent any foreseeable harm from their actions’’. The progressive shift of responsibility to individuals, firms and communities has been accompanied by an emphasis on the development of voluntary or partnership programmes involving individuals and community groups undertaking local projects for environmental remediation. The strategies of partnerships, self-help and community empowerment have been used to encourage participation and to promote the idea that environmental problems are best addressed through communities working together and with government and industry. Advantages are said to include increased public participation in decision-making (Dobson, 2003; Fung and Wright, 2003), often associated with ‘deliberative democracy’ (Hajer and Wagenaar, 2003; Munton, 2003; O’Riordan, 2002). The positive rhetoric surrounding partnerships and civic environmentalism is counterbalanced by a wide range of concerns, however. These refer to the implications of imbalances of power in partnerships, volunteer burnout in community-based programmes, an absence of strategic direction in terms of environmental outcomes, and a lack of adequate resourcing (e.g., Ewing, 2003; Howes, 2005; Lockie, 2001; Rayner, 2003; Wilson, 2004). An international review of the protection and management of biodiversity found little evidence of ‘deliberative democracy’ being practised (O’Riordan and Stoll-Kleeman, 2002). Representative of both the strengths and limitations of such approaches is the Australian National Landcare Program (Lockie, 2001; Lockie and Vanclay, 1997; Nelson et al., 2004; Toyne and Farley, 2000), which emerged as a partnership between environmentalists and farmers. Voluntary programmes such as Landcare serve as effective mechanisms for community education and have also been used with good effect to improve the skill base of community members (Curtis and Lockwood, 1998). However, there are also drawbacks, particularly a lack of accountability and insufficient demonstration of environmental improvement. Furthermore, despite evidence of the willingness of many Australian landholders to undertake environmental activities on their properties, there are indications that they are fighting a losing battle. This has been attributed partly to the inadequacy of the resources committed by governments, or available within local communities, compared to the magnitude of the task (VCMC, 2002; Wilson, 2004). While direct supports for farming, notably subsidies and tariff protection, are minimal in Australia by comparison with other OECD countries (OECD, 2004), profitable farming enterprises— unlike ‘battling’ farmers—enjoy considerable tax advantages, which are not tied to environmental remediation and far outweigh funds available for environmental work (Gumley, 2001, p. 147, 166). To overcome the limitations of both voluntary and regulatory approaches, there has been an increasing interest in, and acceptance of, the use of economic

instruments in support of resource allocation and environmental quality objectives (Campbell et al., 2004; Jenkins et al., 2004). These market-like mechanisms aim to internalise negative environmental externalities, for example by creating markets in carbon, biodiversity and salinity (Sammon and Thomson, 2003). Robinson and Ryan (2002, p. 397) argue that economic instruments represent ‘‘a structured and balanced provision of incentives to provide greater encouragement than moral suasion or the free market, yet avoid complex, prescriptive and penal legislation’’. According to Whitten et al. (2003, p. 9): ‘‘The key reason for y [market-based instrument] adoption is their theoretical potential to deliver the same outcome as a command and control mechanism but generally at lower financial cost to industry and at lower overall social cost’’. Although the enthusiasm for economic instruments is widespread, they have also been subject to critical assessment. Mansfield (2006, p. 30) observed recently: ‘‘Critics argue that market approaches fail to address underlying causes of environmental problems and that not all environmental values can be captured in benefit–cost calculations’’. In an analysis of the use of market instruments in respect of climate change mitigation, Brown and Corbera (2003) identified adverse impacts from an equity perspective and prospective operational problems arising from the definition of property rights and organisational capacity. A review of the use of economic instruments in OECD nations revealed ‘‘no black and white picture of their general success’’ (Barde and Smith, 1997). Despite this, the broader enthusiasm for economic instruments has been matched within Australia. A central plank of national water resources reform, for example, has been the introduction of tradeable water entitlements and the separation of land rights from water rights (Dibden and Cocklin, 2005). At about the time the Land Stewardship project was being carried out, the state government of Victoria was trialling a market-based mechanism referred to as the Victorian Bush Tender Trial. This utilised an auction system to provide funding for private landholders to protect areas of high conservation value on their land. The anticipated benefits of the Bush Tender system are that it overcomes some of the information deficits and transaction costs that limit the creation of environmental markets (Chaudhri, 2003; Stoneham et al., 2003). Through the auction system, information is revealed about government willingness to pay for environmental improvement, and landholder willingness to provide this service, resulting in better value for money and more transparent decision making than under a fixed-price system: ‘‘agency funding of landholder contracts is relatively visible, defensible and auditable’’ (Stoneham et al., 2003, p. 45). Information is also revealed about species and conservation values of sites, which landholders, fearing that their property rights would be threatened, might have been reluctant to disclose in the past. Based on what is clearly a perception of the

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success of the Bush Tender, several similar schemes have been introduced within Victoria since 2005, targeted at habitat protection and salinity control. The success of policy instruments relies on matching them to the particular ecological, political and economic situation and to the capabilities of institutions and stakeholders. It is not necessarily a matter of developing new tools and instruments, but designing a mix of policy instruments that is best suited to the circumstance (Young et al., 1996). It has also been established that the attitudes and outlook of land managers (both farmers and nonfarmers) are fundamental considerations in bringing about changes in land management practices (Blunden et al., 1996; Bowler, 2002; Haw et al., 2000). To succeed, new policy approaches require the cooperation of private landholders and others with vested interests in the commercial utilisation of land. Thus, the effective and efficient implementation of policy and management strategies by government relies, in part, on an understanding of what farmers regard as the key issues that influence their production and resource use decisions, how they are responding to these issues, their disposition towards various policy and management tools and their past experience in working with government agencies. In 2003, the state government of Victoria published an ‘issues and options’ paper that acknowledged the emergent environmental and social problems associated with productivist agriculture and proposed payment to landholders for ‘‘the provision of various environmental services from land’’ (VCMC/DSE, 2003, p. 3). Three principles were established. Firstly, that rural land, managed well, provides a range of valued public good services in terms of environmental management and landscape amenity. Secondly, that the provision of these services is best achieved by maintaining the presence of people in the rural landscape. Thirdly, that the provision of services beyond the ‘duty of care’ should be paid for by society at large. The issues and options paper established a broad research agenda for the further consideration of ‘Land Stewardship’ and specifically ‘‘how society might payy land managers and owners for good management and public good stewardship practices’’ (VCMC/DSE, 2003, p. 3). Research papers prepared for the Land Stewardship project considered how markets for ecosystem services might be established, the proper interpretation of the ‘duty of care’, what role environmental management systems might play in promoting improved Land Stewardship, how private sector investment might be leveraged to pay land owners for the provision of ecosystem services, and what governance frameworks should be developed. Research was also conducted into how landowners perceive and respond to the range of public policy mechanisms that might be deployed in support of sustainable land management (Cocklin et al., 2003), and it is on this aspect that the remainder of this paper reports.

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3. Landholder responses to policy mechanisms The research was concerned with exploring the opinions of land managers on policy proposals relating to sustainable land management and the design of strategies to facilitate the adoption of sustainable practices. The methodology, described fully elsewhere (Dibden et al., 2005), consisted of a series of workshops, involving six groups of 10–15 participants meeting on three separate occasions over the period July–September 2003. Four groups consisted of private landholders, and two groups were regional or local-level institutional land managers (natural resource managers, planners, private sector organisations and farmer organisations). In view of the general consistency of the views among private landholders and institutional managers (many of whom were also farmers or from farming backgrounds), the findings are not partitioned for reporting purposes here. The groups were drawn from two regions of Victoria— North East Victoria and the Wimmera—selected because of the established interest of their Catchment Management Authorities (CMAs) in Land Stewardship initiatives. Landholders were recruited from two local areas within each CMA region. One locality in each region was characterised by extensive land subdivision and a greater prevalence of lifestyle holdings, or what has been referred to as ‘post-productivist’ land uses (Wilson, 2001). The contrasting areas were dominated by commercial farming operations, such as production of beef, sheep (for meat and wool) and crops. Participants included both commercial farmers and ‘hobby’ or ‘lifestyle’ landholders, whose holdings are used for small-scale production or noncommercial purposes. While the groups were diverse, they could not be considered representative of the variegated mix within each region of enterprises, social and demographic characteristics, or values, attitudes and behaviours (see, for example, Curtis et al., 2003). Hence, the exercise cannot be considered (nor was it intended to be) a broad stakeholder consultation process. Rather the project allowed an opportunity for a select group of stakeholders to provide ‘information in’ to a policy development process. There is a danger that limited participation can fail to recognise the diversity of interests, values, social links, cultural norms and desires for active participation within a region and can result in favouring those in already dominant social positions (Broderick, 2005; Carr, 2002; Ewing, 2003; Itzstein-Davey and Conacher, 2001). Due to the restricted focus of the wider Land Stewardship project, there was no attempt to include environmental NGOs, the non-farming rural community, non-agricultural primary producers (such as foresters) and others with a legitimate entitlement to involvement in policy design (see, e.g., Broderick, 2005; Ewing, 2003). The limited focus of the stakeholder engagement reflects a policy environment that places primary responsibility for the management and

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remediation of rural lands on farmers and other private landholders. The first in the series of three workshops asked participants to consider the past, current and future issues facing land managers and rural communities, how they were dealing with these issues and how sustainable they thought land management would be in the future. The project team then developed four scenarios describing possible futures for agriculture, rural communities and land management based on issues and themes that had emerged in the discussions (Dibden et al., 2005). These scenarios were discussed in the second workshop, as a trigger for reflection, and participants’ preferences for policy mechanisms were also explored. Following a roundtable discussion, groups of three to four participants discussed the ‘pros’, ‘cons’ and ‘conditions for success’ of each of these mechanisms in support of sustainable land management. The third workshop presented the findings of the project to the participants and gave an opportunity for participant evaluation of the methodology and outcomes. The key outcomes of the workshop discussions are outlined below, emphasising what the workshop participants perceived to be the positive and negative attributes of policy tools and their views about the essential requirements in order for these tools to be applied with best effect (the ‘conditions for success’).

probably has sustained us to cope with the pressures we are now under with this once in a lifetime drought. Agricultural extension and training in Australia has changed from a service provided by government agencies to one provided increasingly by private contractors. In these cases, participants pay a subsidised fee for the training, which is in contrast to earlier days when most of the training and advisory services offered by government were free. Additionally, in the past much of the training and advice provided by government was delivered on-farm, whereas under the new regime it is more often provided offfarm, at central locations. In some cases, privatised training and advice is provided by product suppliers (e.g., suppliers of farm implements and infrastructure, seed and chemicals). While there was an enthusiasm in general for education, R&D and information, participants, in reflecting on the new regime, reported that training and education was now expensive, inconvenient to attend (because it was off-farm and often involved considerable travel distances) and was, in their view, sometimes misinformed. Many participants related personal experiences of poor quality training, inappropriate formats, content and training methods, or trainers who were ‘‘unable to relate to farmers’’. Bad experiences meant that many landholders involved in our workshops were no longer participating in training.

3.1. Education, R&D and information The participants expressed strong support for training and education as a long-term strategy that fosters continuous improvement, leads to more informed practices, stimulates awareness and action, and encourages peer learning. One landholder poignantly expressed the value of appropriate knowledge and training to enable landholders to cope with adversity (Table 1): If we survive the drought, we would wish to continue with various workshops and education projects to help us continue improving our farming practices. The Whole Farm Planningy [through a locally provided] programme revitalized our farming enterprise and

A lot of farmers feel that the conferences, seminars, a lot of the education is far too expensive, and there’s also the vibe out there that a lot of people that attend them are government employees anyway, it’s a waste of taxpayers’ money and the on-the-ground grass roots farmer doesn’t take part in it. This is seen as a significant change from the past, when ‘‘20–30 years ago it would have been exactly the opposite, it would have been all farmers’’. Education and training were seen as a slow process for achieving sustainable land management. There is a need for information provision based on research or individuals’ onground experience that is practical and provided through one-on-one extension or individual assistance ‘at the

Table 1 Responses to training and education Pros

 Essential  Leads to more informed practices

 Encourages trials  Could be used as a prerequisite for other assistance

 Networking  Can foster continuous improvement

 Long-term gains

Cons

 Expensive  Doesn’t necessarily get to those who need it most

 Risk of misinformation  Often not available locally  Not a substitute for practical experience

 Slow process  Inappropriate delivery modes  Poor presentation/content

Conditions for success

         

Big picture based Good trainers Up to date Affordable and accessible Has a practical (on-farm) component Tiered programmes so people can join at different levels More education for city people to understand rural issues Available and tailored locally Short courses Well resourced

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kitchen table’. At present, there is the risk that training does not necessarily reach those who need it most. Only those interested and motivated attend, though these individuals often play important roles in disseminating information; many landholders recognise the value of getting information ‘over the fence’. Many participants commented on the increasing reliance on private organisations in delivering research outcomes and information to landholders. The number of government extension officers has decreased and, as one landholder commented, ‘that’s where the chemical companies have stepped in’. In particular, larger farming operations rely on close relationships with company agronomists and merchandisers for information. Participants expressed scepticism about the benefits of relying on private interests and a preference for government-funded R&D, which is seen as more independent. Some participants expressed concern that investment in R&D is reactive rather than long term, and that there was too much emphasis on research and not enough on development (Table 2). [In] our whole system there is very little money left for developmenty until it’s practical and that just doesn’t happen ... [because] development is boring sort of work, research is exciting. 3.2. Voluntary mechanisms The discussion of voluntary programmes centred on Landcare, to which many landholders belonged. Landcare has been praised for encouraging communication and cooperation among stakeholders, citizen participation, empowerment and social learning (Curtis and Lockwood, 1998; Haw et al., 2000). Several participants commented that it ‘felt good’. Other advantages of Landcare were local ownership combined with access to grant money and to experts for advice. However, there were also strong feelings expressed about ‘volunteer burnout’, diminishing government support and funding, the administrative burden and the time commitment, particularly for those taking on leadership roles. Some expressed the view that many people were only interested in getting handouts (e.g., free trees) and were not genuinely committed to working collaboratively or participating actively. Other common criticisms

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were that Landcare treated volunteers as ‘cheap contractors’, and that some communities suffered from a lack of adequate skills, expertise and leadership. The need for appropriate managerial, administrative and financial assistance has been identified elsewhere (e.g., Conacher and Conacher, 2000; Wilson, 2004) (Table 3). A problem with the Landcare programme is a tendency for participation to be constrained by extant social relations, resulting specifically in the neglect of non-English speaking people and the marginalisation of ‘green participants’ (Lockie, 2001). The workshop discussions provided indications of a dichotomy between the views of ‘commercial’ farmers and ‘lifestyle’ farmers about the effectiveness of Landcare and, in contrast with Lockie’s (2001) findings, the self-exclusion of commercial farmers from a Landcare group seen as dominated by ‘lifestylers’. One commercial farmer expressed the view that: Landcare has not made farming more sustainable. Not much difference—a few trees here and therey It has been more of a help to hobby farmers. The contrasting opinion from a ‘hobby’ farmer was that: There are lots of Landcare successes, social capital has been develop[ed] out of Landcarey Landholders expressed the need for ‘Continued support and incentives through [the] Landcare programme’, and ‘Landcare support for best management practices as defined by the farming community—not bureaucrats.’ Several participants referred to the importance of assistance offered through Landcare: The greatest help is always funds. Such things as fencing off watercourses—shelterbelts—small pockets of endangered trees, all require money. For such viable projects to go ahead and continue into the future, reimbursement for works done must continue. Such assistance was often seen as supplementing rather than replacing landholders’ own efforts: Most things I think we have to help ourselves—if we can’t do that, we should get out [of farming], perhaps. But little things like grants for fencing off areas for tree

Table 2 Responses to R&D/information Pros

 More informed  More efficient land management practices

 New ideas and technologies  Needed to support education  Necessary for improvement

Cons

 Expensive and not necessarily good   

value for money Hard to discern quality of information Variable adoption Can be controlled by business interests

Conditions for success

      

Government /community funded (not by business) Long-term Targeted to outcomes Information must be easily accessible by farmers Must have practical application Appropriate mechanisms for information transfer Community prepared to accept and learn from failure

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992 Table 3 Responses to voluntary mechanisms Pros

         

Community sets agenda Access to money through grants Driven by need and will Sharing of resources and machinery Synergies of group learning, and interaction. People share successes and failures Social interaction; enhances sense of community Access to experts Education and public awareness Cheap for taxpayers

Cons

Conditions for Success

 Volunteer burnout  Not compulsory  Free loaders—people join for handouts not genuine              

involvement Too much time for members spent in meetings, administration Reliance on ‘looking over the fence’ for improvement Not enough time to make it worthwhile Lack of skill, expertise and infrastructure in local community No guarantee that things will actually happen Too many ‘lifestylers’ involved Lack of accountability Questionable environmental results for government expenditure Lost production and personal income Government shifting too much responsibility to landowners Few good and willing leaders People push projects for individual benefit Too much funding on administration and bureaucracy Property focused—lacks big picture

 Local, paid coordinator  More personnel to support administration

 Community involvement, commitment, enthusiasm

 Good on-ground support  Shared ongoing costs by community

 Visible benefits  Strong leadership  Big picture plan—clear direction and goals

 Combined bottom up and top down influence

 Continuity and adequate funding  Regional or national coordination of volunteer labour

 Help with administration,  Protection in terms of legal liability

 Flexible in timelines and rules for funding

 Long-term planning

planting are great. Probably wouldn’t do it if grants not possible. The discussion about voluntary mechanisms led to reflection on what landholders regard as voluntary work on their own properties. Is environmental work undertaken on private property ‘voluntary work’ or is it an inseparable component of land management? For a lot of people the word ‘voluntary’ doesn’t even come into it, it is part of the whole farm plan, to beautify and improve productivity and biodiversity on the whole farm, so it is to our benefit and the benefit of the animals around me. I would say it’s never voluntary when I’m working on my own farm doing environmental worky I am enhancing the areas that are not very profitable to mey I haven’t created wetlands just for a financial reason, don’t get me wrong there, they are fantastic, I love going out there, but at the same time it has enhanced the value of my property. 3.3. Market-like mechanisms The concept of ecosystem services highlights the material benefits that accrue to society from the functioning of natural systems (Costanza et al., 1997). These services provided by nature, such as soil fertility and structure, pollination of crops and the natural regulation of atmosphere and climatic conditions, are often undervalued or not valued in markets (Cocklin, 2005). The ecosystem

services concept has been applied in a growing number of cases to support the maintenance and remediation of natural systems; examples are the use and revitalisation of floodplains and catchments for their filtration benefits (Daily, 1997) and the development of wetlands mitigation ‘banks’ (Robertson, 2004). Whitten et al. (2003, p. 20) point out that ‘‘Australian resource management agencies have embraced the concept of commercialising ‘environmental services’ because it is perceived that this could attract private investment in natural resource management’’. This is evidenced by recent government funding for a National Market-based Instruments Pilot Program, an initiative under the National Action Plan for Salinity and Water Quality aimed at investigating ‘‘ways to use innovative financial arrangements to encourage better land and water management and to reduce salinity in irrigationbased agriculture’’ (DEH, 2003). In spite of the enthusiasm, Robertson (2004) criticises the economic valuation of nature through the application of ecosystem services concepts, arguing that it is a function of the current model of neoliberal governance, which constructs nature as a commodity. For the purposes of our workshops, market-like mechanisms were considered in three categories: tradeable entitlements (e.g., carbon credits and water trading), auction systems (e.g., the Bush Tender scheme, outlined earlier), and incentives and payments (e.g., rate relief, subsidies and fixed payments). All participants were familiar with most of these mechanisms, although only some of the landholders had direct experience of specific instruments in practice: for example, the Bush Tender scheme had at that time only been trialled

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in some areas and water trading is not practised in all parts of the state. Tradeable entitlements and auction systems received a mixed response, with some participants supporting the concept of water trading but not what had happened in practice—viz., the loss of water rights from some areas due to financial stress (Dibden and Cocklin, 2005). While carbon credits were more favourably regarded than tradeable water entitlements, there was uncertainty and scepticism about them. The conditions for participation were often seen as overly complex and inequitable, indicating that market-like mechanisms are more likely to succeed if guidelines are easy to follow and they are perceived to be fair. Participants considered that a carbon credit system should recognise different types of vegetation (e.g., native grasses, not just trees) and existing vegetation (not just new plantations), and that it should encourage a variety of plantings, not just monocultures. An objection to carbon credits was that they enable emitters to buy an entitlement to continue polluting. Concern was also expressed that rewards for carbon reduction might open the way to penalties for methane emissions by livestock; many of the graziers were aware of such a tax being proposed in New Zealand (Tables 4–6).

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Both the Bush Tender system and other governmentsponsored incentives were regarded with concern by many landholders, who feared the erosion of their land rights. Other potentially negative aspects were that incentives may engender a ‘welfare mentality’ and reward bad land management practices. On the other hand, some landholders saw financial support as a way of retiring marginal land and reducing farming intensity: Less productive may mean more productive and better sustainability environmentally, therefore in these situations an income subsidy enabling a farmer to earn less off the property but still survive financially, e.g., unemployment benefits when the farm is not producing due to external (global) forces? I think that the ‘tender’ system for maintenance and enhancement of native vegetation and biodiversity as used in the ‘Bush Tender Trial’y [would help]. This allowed landholders to gain income from land that government and society’s regulations and controls limit what can be done with it. One landholder suggested that people would be receptive to market-like mechanisms because they were struggling

Table 4 Responses to tradeable entitlements Pros

 Water shifted to highest value uses  Utilises power of financial incentives and       

disincentives Brings in money to the community No cost to the taxpayer Carbon credits—multipurpose: income to take less productive land out of production and trees for profit Cheap (for government) ‘Values’ aspects of the environment Helps make ‘true cost’ of production transparent Ensures ‘environmental water’ is considered

Cons

           

Supports polluting activities Long-term loss of land value Water users hindered by speculators No real benefit for the average farmer Concentration of irrigation in one area Difficult to implement Water rights should be attached to land Profiteering Lose control of land Can lead to overuse of water Encourages monoculture May not occur in most desirable areas

Conditions for success

 Water trading should be restricted to users (not speculators)

 Water rights should only be leasable  Carbon credits should be for existing bush not just new plantings.

 Should recognise other vegetation (e.g.    

pasture), and all types of tree plantings (not just plantations) Well-defined trade conditions No monopoly/concentration of controls Rules and guidelines must be practical, clear and simple Link water rights to water quality

Table 5 Responses to auction systems Pros

 Financial recognition is an incentive  Attractive to small land holders  Makes transparent the cost of native vegetation management

 Market sets the price  Encourages participation

Cons

     

Hard to monitor and administer More paper work Land ‘locked up’ Threat to ownership rights Doesn’t reward work already done Time and ability to write tenders

Conditions for success

 Flexible, willing to consider different     

strategies Opportunity to opt out Long-term commitment to funding Simplified rules Should reward value for money—not just the cheapest tenders Monitoring

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Table 6 Responses to incentives and payments Pros

 Recognition and cost for environmental         

work shared by the greater community Encourage farmers to look after the environment Removes lowest productivity land Achieves both production and income Certainty Acknowledgement of work done Can lead to wider landscape change Encourages appropriate land use Simple to administer Can raise benchmarks

Cons

      

Conditions for success

Red tape and paperwork Can reward bad practices Can develop a welfare mentality Difficult to monitor High administration costs Difficult to structure payments (e.g. to deal with land transfer) Can be inequitable

 Burden should not fall on local       

community—must be paid by broader community (state or federal) Needs to be tied to stewardship ethic Must be long-term Good checks and balances Targeted to achieve environmental outcomes Equitable payments (based on performance) Recognition for prior work done Not administratively onerous

Table 7 Responses to regulation Pros

 Necessary  Establishes benchmarks, sets minimum standards

 Powerful tool  Provides clear rules to operate  Public responds quickly

Cons

Conditions for success

 ‘‘Big Stick’’ gets people offside and   

reduces interest High cost to government Can be counterproductive and a disincentive Lack of enforcement

     

Realistic and practical Developed in consultation with farmers Flexible and not too prescriptive Simplified paperwork Used sparingly (last resort) Linked to education and training

financially as a result of a severe drought and were looking for other sources of income.

local group would comprise farmers locally with experience and acknowledged as good operators.

You probably couldn’t have struck a worse year than this oney because people were pretty well down on their luck and if there’s anything out there that [you] can derive income from than just your normal farming practice which is going down the drain, well you’d jump at it.

Landholders want to see regulation used sparingly—as a tool of last resort. According to them, it should be accompanied by education and training, so that landholders understand the implications and reasoning behind it. In spite of the antipathy towards regulation, most landowners acknowledged its essential role in ensuring minimum standards and controlling ‘rogue’ operators.

A vigorous debate developed between landholders with larger properties, who favoured tax relief for environmental work, and others who argued that tax deductions would be inequitable, providing little benefit for the many landholders with low taxable incomes. 3.4. Regulation References to regulation were largely negative. Much of the opposition to regulation derives from the perception that it is top-down and developed without consultation with landholders by city people, who lack understanding of rural conditions and constraints. Suggestions included modifying regulations to fit local conditions or through local management processes (Table 7): Instead of having heavy-handed government to control what happens on farms, maybe we could have a local group that oversees any application by farmers. The

3.5. Summary assessments Following the small group discussions, the workshop participants were asked to indicate their preferences for policy instruments via a ‘voting’ process. Each participant was given 20 coloured stickers to use as ‘votes’—10 green for positive votes and 10 red as negative votes. Participants could spread their votes as they liked—e.g., if they strongly preferred tradeable entitlements they could use all of their green stickers to ‘vote’ for that mechanism. Interestingly, many participants showed a preference for an affirmative approach and chose not to allocate all of their negative votes. The exercise yielded a useful visual tool (Fig. 2), representing the collective preferences of participants for environmental policy mechanisms. In combination with the workshop discussions, the voting exercise identified a hierarchy of preferences for policy tools. Landholders

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Number of Votes 0 Training & education R&D /Information

50

100

150

200

250

For Against

Voluntary Tradeable entitlements Auction systems Incentives & payments Regulation Unused votes Fig. 2. Preferences for policy mechanisms.

favoured mechanisms for delivering sustainable resource management that are entered into voluntarily and that support their preference for self-improvement and independence: i.e., training and education, information and R&D, and voluntary programmes. Market mechanisms received a mixed response, partly reflecting the very different schemes that are in place (water trading, Bush Tender, etc.). Incentives and payments received a large number of positive votes, but also many negative votes. Opinions were evenly divided about tradeable entitlements and auction schemes. Regulation received the most negative response.

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distinguish food that has been produced sustainably. This suggests that many landholders would welcome government support for the development of a mechanism for certification and ‘eco-labelling’ of produce from sustainably managed land (Chaudhri, 2003). Such a system has already been tested in some areas (Higgins et al., 2007). A perception of negative public attitudes towards farming practices and the desire for recognition were strong and recurrent themes throughout the workshops. In particular, in reflecting on expectations within wider society that farmers should go beyond the ‘duty of care’, many workshop participants strongly supported the idea of some form of assistance offered by the whole community in acknowledgement of the stewardship role of farmers in providing benefits that accrue primarily to society at large rather than the landholder. For example: Acknowledge that I, the farmer, receive NO benefit for many works carried out on my property for the reputed benefit of the whole community. Acknowledge the true total cost to me of environmental actions of no benefit to me but carried out [as] a good steward of land temporarily under my carey Several themes emerged from the workshops that represent ‘key criteria for successful programmes’ from the viewpoint of landholders and other land managers. These were:

4. Policy implications Some mechanisms to support sustainable land management are already in operation and, as our workshops indicated, should continue to be supported as part of an integrated strategy for promoting sustainable practices within the rural landscape. Our dialogue with participants suggests that, from a landholder perspective, the strategy should consist of a hierarchical mix of policy instruments:

  

R&D, training and education, and voluntary programmes, the mechanisms most favoured by landholders; market-like mechanisms, which received ‘in principle’ support from participants, moderated by concerns for their operational aspects; and regulation, viewed by landholders as a measure of last resort, ensuring minimum standards are maintained.

In considering a Land Stewardship strategy, the preference was for improved economic conditions rather than for provision of government incentives or payments for delivering ecosystem services. Whether this would serve both economic and environmental objectives is open to conjecture, given the commitment of the Australian government to trade liberalisation and the resulting low prices and price volatility experienced by Australian farmers competing against subsidised produce from Europe and North America. Participants also pointed to a lack of domestic public awareness or consumer ability to

(1) Implementation requirements, which include recognition and rewards for early adopters, straightforward rules and guidelines, and access by all landholders to programmes and incentives on a non-discriminatory basis. (2) Integration of policy mechanisms. New strategies are more likely to be accepted by landholders if they include education, training and information provision. Information must be communicated in a way that is practical for landholders to apply. Education should be combined with ‘‘advice and incentives—[we] must balance profitability with protecting environment’’. (3) The role of government. Landholders need to feel confident that programmes/strategies will be ongoing and that government has a genuine commitment to them over the long term. Some landholders observed that agencies are continually changing their approach without appreciating the implications for the landholders. At the same time, there is apprehension about loss of control of land. (4) Incentives for landholder participation. Landholders expressed the desire to understand how their activities fit with wider (e.g., catchment scale) objectives and to be better informed about what the ‘big picture’ is. A common theme throughout the workshops was anxiety about public attitudes towards farming practices and a desire for landholders to be recognised for the environmental work they are already undertaking. Public recognition and promotion of the role of farmers

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and other landholders would constitute a significant motivational incentive for improved land management. Generally, participants supported the idea of some kind of reward for the provision of ecosystem services. However, many were sceptical that there would be adequate remuneration to compensate for the costs in time, labour, resources and income foregone, or to improve farm viability. When it comes to the design of appropriate policy interventions in support of improved Land Stewardship, these views merit close attention. We argued earlier in this paper that the meaningful engagement of private landowners is a valuable input to successful policy delivery, because it holds the promise of revealing points of convergence and divergence between the architects of policy and those who will be the subject of policy interventions. A failure to identify and consider points of agreement and disagreement will almost inevitably frustrate the attainment of preferred policy outcomes. A broadening of the frame of reference in policy design to provide fuller and more meaningful involvement of private sector interests and the community is a constituent element of the so-called shift from government to governance (Goodwin, 1998; Rhodes, 1996). The responsibility for the environment and sustainability has become a much broader project, no longer primarily the preserve of governments, but one that also involves civil society and private interests. As we noted earlier in this paper, in the practice of environmental management an expression of these changes is that command-and-control strategies are losing favour while market-based mechanisms, voluntary initiatives, and partnerships with non-governmental organisations have gained greater acceptance. The Land Stewardship project is representative of this new style of governance in many respects and it has attendant advantages. However, we also perceive that it carries risks, two of which merit consideration. The first arises from concerns about whether engaging with community (in our case, landholders) carries with it a promise that non-government participants will have a real influence in terms of policy design. Munton (2003, p. 113) suggests, for example: youtside the corporate domain it is, today, quite difficult to find examples of environmental decisionmaking where there has been no public consultation or other form of public involvement in the process. Whether the nature of that involvement is deemed satisfactory is quite another mattery Their contribution lies as much in the legitimacy they bring to particular decisions as to the specific outcomes but in the long run they must be seen to make a difference to the outcomes if they are to retain the confidence of those who take part (our emphasis). In concert with this observation, participants in the Land Stewardship research repeatedly voiced their concerns as to

whether their views would eventually find their way into policy design. To meet this concern, representatives of the government agencies sponsoring the Land Stewardship project were invited to attend the final workshops to address these very questions. However, it is questionable whether the reassurances that the landholders were seeking were delivered, at least in part because of uncertainty in government circles about future policy directions. Moreover, there was no commitment to involve participants in any further policy development. The participatory process initiated (and stillborn) in the Land Stewardship project thus fell far short of the ‘deliberative democracy’ proposed by O’Riordan and Stoll-Kleeman (2002, p. 93), who envisaged: ‘‘Governance through processes of shared responsibility [that] operate through networks of connected responsibilities rather than hierarchies of power and policy dominance’’. Our second broad concern is, in a sense, the reverse of the first—viz., that in the move to wider engagement of stakeholders in policy formulation, certain interests might be privileged over others. In short, the question at issue revolves around what roles, responsibilities and power the respective actors (state, private, civil society) should have in the policy process. In the context of the Land Stewardship project, the specific concern would be that the views of landholders are afforded a disproportionate influence relative to other stakeholders and relevant inputs to policy design (e.g., professional understandings of the efficacy of specific policy instruments). Rayner (2003) alerts us to the fact that the involvement of non-state actors rests on an implicit notion of citizens who are:

  

socially embedded in the community; locally knowledgeable and intuitively reflexive about society and nature; focused on the common good, as a core value of public life relies on inclusionary deliberation to deliver truth

These assumptions overlook the reality of politics and power in communities, the sway of self-interest, and a prospective indifference among participants to wider social concerns about the environment. We suggest that two directives follow from this. First, we must be attentive to the risks of privileging only some views in the design of policy interventions. In the case of the Land Stewardship project, the responsibility lies with government to ensure that other stakeholders are engaged and that their views and interests are also considered in policy design. The second is that governments must retain an important role as arbiters of the wider social interest in designing policy and management interventions. 5. Conclusions The research aimed to include landholders in the development of new policies and programmes, in part by

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eliciting their attitudes and opinions on the use of a selection of standard policy mechanisms for sustainable land management. A framework for sustainable land management and the wider provision of ecosystem services was proposed by participants that recognises and supports the role and rights of landholders as stewards of the land and is fair and equitable, not administratively onerous to access or implement, adapted to local conditions, and based on a long-term, coordinated commitment by government. Amongst participants, there is a strong desire to avoid a ‘welfare mentality’, revealed in the widely shared preference for policy mechanisms that support landholders’ independence. Education, training and information provision are seen as critical for the future of farming, but there are concerns about the availability, quality, cost and impartiality of information and training options, which are edging out ‘real farmers’ in favour of the paid professionals. Concerns about different mechanisms revolved around issues of adequate funding. For the marketlike mechanisms, there was apprehension about the types of rules under which they would function. The question about how and what to pay landholders for ecosystem services leads to the grey area surrounding duty of care, i.e., establishing what is a reasonable expectation of landholders and what might be considered as ‘going the extra step’ towards protecting and enhancing the environment for the public good (cf. Young et al., 2003). Many landholders would be drawn to an initiative that gave recognition, support and financial assistance to landholders providing ecosystem services. One possibility is for consumers to recognise and reward environmental services through payment of a price premium for produce with sound environmental credentials, identified perhaps through an eco-labelling scheme. However, the experience of a recently established scheme suggests that this may also be a difficult path to follow (Higgins et al., 2007). The other avenue is through direct financial assistance. This would be particularly attractive to landholders who have already adopted a range of conservation measures or would like to retire marginal land from production, to landholders experiencing financial stress, and more widely to members of the farming community in areas affected by an environmental crisis, such as drought, bushfires and flood. Given that environmental degradation will worsen and the frequency and severity of extreme events is likely to increase as a result of climate change, ecosystem services will potentially become an increasingly attractive option for landholders and an urgent imperative for Australian governments. Acknowledgements This paper is based on work carried out under contract to the Department of Sustainability and Environment (DSE), State Government of Victoria. The Land Stewardship Project, of which this work was a part, is a collaborative initiative involving the Victorian Catchment

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