Supporting Cooperative Forest Management among Small-Acreage Lifestyle Landowners in Southeast Queensland, Australia

Abstract

Effective landscape-level biodiversity conservation requires cooperative forest management across public and private-tenure boundaries. This study explores the potential for cooperative cross-boundary forest management among small-acreage lifestyle landholders in southeast Queensland using 17 in-depth qualitative case-study analyses. Landholders typically possessed mutual objectives concerning forest management, a sense of neighborly stewardship, and positive predispositions toward cooperative cross-boundary forest management. However, capacity, institutional, and neighbor-related barriers were limiting landholder interest and involvement. We find that peer-mentoring networks have a critical role to play in promoting and delivering programs that support cross-boundary forest management. Government should ideally play a background “out-of-sight” facilitator role. We also find the capacity for urbanizing rural landscapes to retain their natural values can be greatly enhanced by facilitating small-acreage landholder cooperation to maintain and restore their contiguous forests, mitigate wildfire hazards, and revegetate paddocks to buffer existing forests or create new fire-retardant forests.