Prospects for sustainable use of the pastoral areas of Australia’s southern rangelands: a synthesis

There is growing recognition of the need to achieve land use across the southern Australian rangelands that accommodates changing societal preferences and ensures the capacity of future generations to satisfy their own preferences. This paper considers the prospects for sustainable use of the pastoral lands based either on continued grazing or emerging, alternative land uses. After an overview of the southern rangelands environment, the status of the pastoral industry, its environmental impacts, and key issues for pastoral management, we propose four principles and 19 associated guidelines for sustainable pastoralism. Although some continued withdrawal of land from pastoralism is anticipated, we expect that pastoralism will continue throughout much of the region currently grazed, particularly in the higher rainfall environments in the east. Within these areas, sustainable pastoral land use should be achievable by the application of four broad management principles, as follows: (1) manage grazing within a risk management framework based on the concept of tactical grazing, (2) develop infrastructure to allow best management of both domestic and non-domestic grazing pressure, (3) incorporate management of invasive native scrub, where required, into overall, ongoing property management and (4) manage grazing to enhance biodiversity conservation at landscape scale. Application of these principles and guidelines will require the development of appropriate policy settings, particularly in relation to kangaroo management, climate change, and natural resource governance, together with innovative approaches to research, development and extension. Policy development will also be required if the new industry of carbon sequestration is to deliver socio-ecological benefits without perverse outcomes. Other emerging industries based on renewable energy or ecosystem services appear to have considerable potential, with little risk of adverse ecological consequences.

Carbon farming for resilient rangelands: people, paddocks and policy

Carbon farming is a new land use option over extensive areas of the Australian rangelands. This land use change has been promoted by government incentives to mitigate climate change, with most of Australia’s land sector abatement to date being delivered in rangelands. Aside from these mitigation benefits, carbon farming has also demonstrated potential co-benefits that enhance socio-ecological resilience by diversifying land uses and income streams, providing opportunities for sustainable land management to enhance soil and vegetation and creating opportunities for self-organisation and collaboration. However, factors such as policy uncertainty, perceived loss of future land use flexibility and the potential for carbon farming eligibility to create social divisions may negatively affect resilience. In this paper we weigh up these risks, opportunities and co-benefits and propose indicators for measuring the impact of carbon farming on the resilience of rangeland systems. A set of land policy principles for enhancing resilience through carbon farming are also identified.

Prospects for ecologically and socially sustainable management of total grazing pressure in the southern rangelands of Australia

Numerous large herbivore species, both native and exotic, share the southern Australian rangelands with domestic livestock, which often account for only about half of the total grazing pressure. Although each presents its individual challenge to landholders, the management of kangaroos is a key component of ecologically sustainable management of the region because (a) they represent a significant component of the non-domestic grazing pressure, particularly in areas from which dingos and wild dogs have been (partially) removed; (b) commercial harvesting, the means of control that has the highest social acceptability, has been rendered ineffective by the actions of activist groups and market closure due to food safety concerns; (c) the task is largely beyond the capacity of individual landholders; and (d) the same constraints do not apply to other non-domestic components of total grazing pressure. Management of total grazing pressure, and particularly kangaroos, currently represents a case of market failure because the level of management that can be expected of landholders is not consistent with public expectations for resource conservation and animal welfare. Several avenues are available by which kangaroo management could be advanced to achieve both public and private benefits. These include adoption of an active, adaptive management approach to the kangaroo population, establishment of arrangements that will shift the general perception of kangaroos from pest to resource, development of an appropriate incentive framework to achieve desirable landscape outcomes, and continued evaluation of the benefits and costs of cluster fencing. These initiatives require both a greater commitment from governments to address the market failure and a proactive stance by industry to engage stakeholders, self-regulate, and objectively demonstrate environmental and animal welfare credentials.

Insights on the relationship between total grazing pressure management and sustainable land management: key indicators to verify impacts

Demonstrating sustainable land management (SLM) requires an understanding of the linkages between grazing management and environmental stewardship. Grazing management practices that incorporate strategic periods of rest are promoted internationally as best practice. However, spatial and temporal trends in unmanaged feral (goat) and native (kangaroo) populations in the southern Australian rangelands can result land managers having, at times, control over less than half the grazing pressure, precluding the ability to rest pastures. Few empirical studies have examined the impacts of total grazing pressure (TGP) on biodiversity and resource condition, while the inability to manage grazing intensity at critical times may result in negative impacts on ground cover, changes in pasture species composition, increased rates of soil loss and reduce the ability for soils to store carbon. The widespread adoption of TGP control through exclusion fencing in the southern Australian rangelands has created unprecedented opportunities to manage total grazing pressure, although there is little direct evidence that this infrastructure leads to more sustainable land management. Here we identify several key indicators that are either outcome- or activity-based that could serve as a basis for verification of the impacts of TGP management. Since TGP is the basic determinant of the impact of herbivory on vegetation it follows that the ability for rangeland pastoral management to demonstrate SLM and environmental stewardship will rely on using evidence-based indicators to support environmental social licence to operate.

Australian rangeland futures: time now for systemic responses to interconnected challenges

Australia’s rangelands contain wildlands, relatively intact biodiversity, widespread Indigenous cultures, pastoral and mining industries all set in past and present events and mythologies. The nature of risks and threats to these rangelands is increasingly global and systemic. Future policy frameworks must acknowledge this and act accordingly. We collate current key information on land tenures and land uses, people and domestic livestock in Australian rangelands, and discuss five perspectives on how the rangelands are changing that should inform the development of integrated policy: climate and environmental change, the southern rangelands, the northern rangelands, Indigenous Australia, and governance and management. From these perspectives we argue that more attention must be paid to: ensuring a social licence to operate across a range of uses, acknowledging and supporting a younger, more Indigenous population, implementing positive aspects of technological innovation, halting capital and governance leakages, and building human capacity. A recommended set of systemic responses should therefore (i) address governance issues consistently and comprehensively, (ii) ensure that new technologies can foster the delivery of sustainable livelihoods, and (iii) focus capacity building on a community of industries where knowledge is built for the long-term, and do all three of these with an eye to the changing demographics of the rangelands.

Alignment between values of dryland pastoralists and conservation needs for small mammals

Policies for conservation outside protected areas, such as those designed to address the decline in Australian mammals, will not result in net improvements unless they address barriers to proenvironmental behavior. We used a mixed-methods approach to explore potential value-action gaps (disconnects between values and subsequent action) for small mammal conservation behaviors among pastoralists in dryland Australia. Using semistructured surveys and open-ended interviews (n = 43), we explored values toward small mammals; uptake of a range of current and intended actions that may provide benefit to small mammals; and potential perceived barriers to their uptake. Pastoralists assigned great conservation value to small mammals; over 80% (n = 36) agreed to strongly agreed that small mammals on their property were important. These values did not translate into stated willingness to engage in voluntary cessation of wild-dog control (r² = 0.187, p = 0.142, n = 43). However, assigning great conservation value to small mammals was strongly related to stated voluntary willingness to engage in the proenvironmental behavior most likely to result in benefits to small mammals: cat and fox control (r² = 0.558, p = 0.000, n = 43). There was no significant difference between stated voluntarily and incentivized willingness to engage in cat and fox control (p = 0.862, n = 43). The high levels of willingness to engage in voluntary cat and fox control highlight a potential entry point for addressing Australia's mammal declines because the engagement of pastoralists in conservation programs targeting cat and fox control is unlikely to be prevented by attitudinal constraints. Qualitative data suggest there is likely a subpopulation of pastoralists who value small mammals but do not wish to engage in formal conservation programs due to relational barriers with potential implementers. A long-term commitment to engagement with pastoralists by implementers will thus be necessary for conservation success. On-property cat and fox control programs that build and leverage trust, shared goals, collaboration, and shared learning experiences between stakeholders and that explicitly recognize the complexity of small mammal dynamics and the property-level ecological knowledge of pastoralists are more likely to gain traction.

Using economic, social and ecological spatial patterns to guide policy development in the Pilbara and Southern Rangelands of Western Australia

The pastoral industry in the Pilbara and Southern Rangelands of Western Australia continues to face very difficult economic, social and ecological situations due to decline in terms of trade and ongoing decline in range condition. Land administration by State government for the pastoral industry has a strong focus on environmental and ecological sustainability but these goals have largely not been achieved. Regional planning and incentive-based approaches have either failed or only been partly successful at pastoral lease scale. This paper identifies four broad economic, social and ecological landscape patterns ranging from economic, social and ecological sustainability to failure across all three dimensions. Some lessees are adapting to economic decline by obtaining work off station or diversification in the limited locations where these opportunities are available, in some cases facilitating landscape restoration. Market-based incentives may be effective where economic viability is attainable but lease buy-back may be required where leaseholders are locked into a poverty cycle. Carbon-based income is problematic until governance and economic parameters are resolved. Mapping the economic, social and ecological patterns in the landscape is a basis for policy and special purpose initiatives to resolve the current very difficult economic, social and environmental situation in the Pilbara and Southern Rangelands.

A more effective means of delivering conservation management: a ‘New Integrated Conservation’ model for Australian rangelands

Desert ecology features long time-frames and extreme seasonal unpredictability. In addition, Australia’s arid rangelands have unique social, cultural, land-use and land tenure characteristics that influence appropriate conservation management. These circumstances have not been adequately incorporated into current conservation models, which rely on statutory control and (inadequate) grant funding. Application and management of the capital supposed to finance an effective response to the unique features of Australia’s rangelands thus remains largely divorced from actual circumstances. This paper briefly describes these unique features and the structure and characteristics of the capital currently applied in natural resource management. It then outlines a new conservation approach – the New Integrated Conservation model – to better match the actual natural, cultural and institutional ‘ecology’ of Australia’s rangelands. The model has three elements: a new fiscal ecology, multiplex governance arrangements and the incorporation of multiple objectives and mixed approaches into conservation management.

Estimating the cost of protecting groundcover on privately managed properties in the Australian rangelands: the case of the West 2000 Plus Enterprise-Based Conservation scheme

A significant quantity of native vegetation and biodiversity remains on privately managed rangeland properties. Due to a lack of appropriate incentives, landholders do not always conserve these resources at a level that society desires. Regulations to conserve native vegetation can impose substantial costs on landholders. Market-Based Instruments have therefore been developed to provide market incentives aimed at achieving conservation at lower costs. We review the application of a Market-Based Instrument scheme, the West 2000 Plus Enterprise-Based Conservation program, which was designed for the Western Division of New South Wales. We estimate the private and social costs of increasing groundcover on privately managed properties, with and without the scheme. The costs are estimated under actual market and climatic conditions, and simulated under a wider range of conditions. The results indicate that costs vary widely across different conservation areas, depending on the location and previous management strategies of the property. The Enterprise-Based Conservation scheme has increased conservation in the region, and the implications from its application are reviewed to assist the further development of Market-Based Instruments.