title: Private land manager capacity to conserve threatened communities under climate change.
abstract: Major global changes in vegetation community distributions and ecosystem processes are expected as a result of climate change. In agricultural regions with a predominance of private land, biodiversity outcomes will depend on the adaptive capacity of individual land managers, as well as their willingness to engage with conservation programs and actions. Understanding adaptive capacity of landholders is critical for assessing future prospects for biodiversity conservation in privately owned agricultural landscapes globally, given projected climate change. This paper is the first to develop and apply a set of statistical methods (correlation and bionomial regression analyses) for combining social data on land manager adaptive capacity and factors associated with conservation program participation with biophysical data describing the current and projected-future distribution of climate suitable for vegetation communities. We apply these methods to the Tasmanian Midlands region of Tasmania, Australia and discuss the implications of the modelled results on conservation program strategy design in other contexts. We find that the integrated results can be used by environmental management organisations to design community engagement programs, and to tailor their messages to land managers with different capacity types and information behaviours. We encourage environmental agencies to target high capacity land managers by diffusing climate change and grassland management information through well respected conservation NGOs and farm system groups, and engage low capacity land managers via formalized mentoring programs.
authors.affiliation: Geosciences and Natural Resource Management, University of Copenhagen, Rolighedsvej 23, Frederiksberg, Denmark; Enviroconnect, PO Box 190, Stirling, South Australia 5152, Australia. Electronic address: chris.raymond@enviroconnect.com.au.
authors.forename: C M
authors.initials: CM
authors.lastname: Raymond
authors.affiliation: Centre for Environment, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 141, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia; Centre for Social Responsibility in Mining, Sustainable Minerals Institute, Sir James Foots Building (47A), Staff House Road, The University of Queensland, Brisbane, Queensland 4072, Australia.
authors.forename: A M
authors.initials: AM
authors.lastname: Lechner
authors.affiliation: Geography and Spatial Sciences, School of Land and Food, University of Tasmania, Private Bag 78, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Lockwood
authors.affiliation: Natural and Cultural Heritage Division, Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, PO Box 44, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
authors.forename: O
authors.initials: O
authors.lastname: Carter
authors.affiliation: Antarctic Climate and Ecosystems Cooperative Research Centre (ACE CRC), University of Tasmania, Private Bag 80, Hobart, Tasmania 7000, Australia.
authors.forename: R M B
authors.initials: RMB
authors.lastname: Harris
authors.affiliation: Natural and Cultural Heritage Division, Department of Primary Industries, Parks, Water and Environment, PO Box 44, Hobart, Tasmania 7001, Australia.
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Gilfedder
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture; D044822:Biodiversity; D057231:Climate Change; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D017753:Ecosystem; D006801:Humans; D015233:Models, Statistical; D008962:Models, Theoretical; D017149:Private Sector; D013648:Tasmania
keywords: Adaptive capacity; Environmental change; Novel ecosystems; Pro-environmental behaviour; Threatened communities