The adoption of short-rotation energy cropping as a new land use option in the New South Wales Central West

Baumber, Alex; Merson, John; Ampt, Peter; Diesendorf, Mark

doi:10.5172/rsj.20.3.266

Cited by 11 publications

(6 citation statements)

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“…The participants' tendency to focus on climate variability or climatic cycles rather than anthropogenic climate change is consistent with results from other parts of rural Australia (such as Baumber et al 2011, Buys et al 2012. Connor and Higginbotham (2013) found that rural Australians in particular rely on their experiences of droughts and changing seasonal patterns to back up their positions towards climate change, without detecting variations beyond the normal vagaries of the climate.…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

‘This country just hangs tight’: perspectives on managing land degradation and climate change in far west NSW

2019

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Discussions of land degradation often display a disconnect between global and local scales. Although global-scale discussions often focus on measuring and reversing land degradation through metrics and policy measures, local-scale discussions can highlight a diversity of viewpoints and the importance of local knowledge and context-specific strategies for sustainable land management. Similarly, although scientific studies clearly link anthropogenic climate change to land degradation as both cause and consequence, the connection may not be so clear for local rangelands communities due to the complex temporal and spatial scales of change and management in such environments. In research conducted in October 2015, we interviewed 18 stakeholders in the far west of New South Wales about their perspectives on sustainable land management. The results revealed highly variable views on what constitutes land degradation, its causes and appropriate responses. For the pastoral land managers, the most important sign of good land management was the maintenance of groundcover, through the management of total grazing pressure. Participants viewed overgrazing as a contributor to land degradation in some cases and they identified episodes of land degradation in the region. However, other more contentious factors were also highlighted, such as wind erosion, grazing by goats and kangaroos and the spread of undesired ‘invasive native scrub’ at the expense of more desirable pasture, and alternative views that these can offer productive benefits. Although few participants were concerned about anthropogenic climate change, many described their rangeland management styles as adaptive to the fluctuations of the climate, regardless of the reasons for these variations. Rather than focusing on whether landholders ‘believe in’ climate change or agree on common definitions or measurement approaches for land degradation, these results suggest that their culture of adaptation may provide a strong basis for coping with an uncertain future. The culture of adaption developed through managing land in a highly variable climate may help even if the specific conditions that landholders need to adapt to are unlike those experienced in living memory. Such an approach requires scientific and expert knowledge to be integrated alongside the context-specific knowledge, values and existing management strategies of local stakeholders.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 73%

‘This country just hangs tight’: perspectives on managing land degradation and climate change in far west NSW

2019

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“…The acceptance of carbon farming by landholders and surrounding communities may be influenced not only by its potential benefits, but also by the risks of the "disbenefits" being incurred. At the landholder level, potential disbenefits include negative impacts on other farm enterprises and the loss of flexibility around future land use [4,21,25]. For communities surrounding carbon farming sites, potential disbenefits include increased risks from pests and fire [26], and an increase in invasive native scrub at the expense of grass cover, which is typically associated with an unhealthy landscape by many graziers [3].…”

Section: Carbon Farming In Australiamentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, not all outcomes of carbon farming are viewed as positive by all stakeholders, with some representing "disbenefits" rather than "co-benefits" [2]. Some of the potential disbenefits of carbon farming that have been raised by various stakeholders include the expansion of undesirable invasive native scrub or "woody weeds" [3], a loss of flexibility for future land-use options [4], and social divisions in rural communities between those receiving payments for carbon farming and those missing out [5]. The balance between the benefits and costs, and their distribution across different stakeholders, are critical factors in determining whether emerging land-use activities, such as carbon farming, are able to obtain a "social licence to operate" from the communities affected by them [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Understanding the Social Licence of Carbon Farming in the Australian Rangelands

et al. 2021

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Carbon farming has expanded in Australia’s rangelands over recent years, incentivised under the Australian Government’s Emissions Reduction Fund. While this has largely been driven by economic benefits for landholders, the long-term viability of the carbon farming industry depends on its ability to obtain and maintain a social licence to operate in affected communities. Using a combination of survey, interview and focus group methods, involving key stakeholders in far-western New South Wales (NSW), this study reveals that the greatest threat to the social licence of carbon farming is the lack of confidence in governance related to policy complexity and uncertainty. Procedural fairness is a relative strength because of the involvement of trusted community members, and the trust-building strategies employed by the aggregators who recruit landholders to carbon farming. Perceptions of distributional fairness are strengthened by the benefits beginning to flow through rangeland communities, but are weakened by concerns around the equity of eligibility and the land management rules. A focus on participatory policy development, aligning rules with local values and local-scale trust building, is required in order to enhance the social licence for carbon farming in the NSW rangelands.

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“…However, a range of potential "disbenefits" have also been identified from carbon farming that could pose threats to the future expansion of the industry as well as affecting the socio-ecological resilience of rangeland systems. These disbenefits include perceived risks of increases in invasive native scrub (INS) or woody weeds (Jassim 2018, Butler et al 2014 which have the potentilal to reduce land use flexibility due to long-term land management commitments (Kragt et al 2017) and decrease land value (Baumber et al 2011). Further disbenefts may include a perceived risk of fire and pest occurrence (Torabi et al 2016) caused by landholders shifting from pastoralism to carbon farming and moving off site (absenteeism) and social divisions which may also occur with an increasing gap between those who have eligible land for carbon farming and those who do not (Cowie et al 2019;Cross et al 2019).…”

Section: Benefits and Disbenefits Of Carbon Farming For Rangelands: Pmentioning

confidence: 99%

Carbon farming for resilient rangelands: people, paddocks and policy

et al. 2020

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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 the vast majority 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 Accepted version-final version at: https://www.publish.csiro.au/rj/RJ20034 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 have the potential to negatively impact on resilience. In this paper, we weigh up these risks, opportunities and cobenefits 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. Summary text for the Table of Contents online Carbon farming is expanding in Australia's rangelands, driven by government incentives aimed at managing land to promote the regeneration or maintenance of tree cover. While carbon sequestration is the primary objective, other co-benefits for biodiversity, soils and landholder income may enhance socio-ecological resilience of rangeland Australia. This paper analyses these opportunities along with potential risks to resilience that could arise from policy uncertainty, social divisions and perceived loss of future land use flexibility.

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The adoption of short-rotation energy cropping as a new land use option in the New South Wales Central West

Cited by 11 publications

References 0 publications

‘This country just hangs tight’: perspectives on managing land degradation and climate change in far west NSW

‘This country just hangs tight’: perspectives on managing land degradation and climate change in far west NSW

Understanding the Social Licence of Carbon Farming in the Australian Rangelands

Carbon farming for resilient rangelands: people, paddocks and policy

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