Should Land Be Public or Privately Owned Peer Reviewed Articles

1. Introduction: the importance of conservation on private state

Globally, biodiversity conservation has relied heavily on protected areas to halt its loss and safeguard the existence of its components into the future. Protected areas, identified on the basis of the endangerment, distinctiveness and utility of the natural components they incorporate, are the functional units of in situ large-scale conservation and have an important role in promoting nature conservation (Bishop et al. 2004; Naro-Maciel, Sterling, and Rao 2008; Gibbs, Hunter Jr, and Sterling 2009). Historically, they consisted of public land, or sometimes a combination of public and individual land, but often the private land was converted to public state by purchase or conquering. However, protected areas (whether public or a combination of both public and private state) cannot exist considered as sufficient measures for conservation as they contain a small fraction of the global biodiversity, occupy only 13.9% of the total global land area, are susceptible to human degradation, tin be downgraded in their protection and, finally, their effectiveness in isolation is questionable (Chape et al. 2003; Naughton-Treves, The netherlands, and Brandon 2005; Emerton, Bishop, and Thomas 2006; Stolton, Mansourian, and Dudley 2010; Mascia and Pailler 2011; Mora and Auction 2011).

A more than holistic approach to conservation requires looking beyond the 'airtight' box model of protected areas as the only solution to conservation, every bit it is not possible to convert every tract of land with conservation value into a formally recognised protected area (Figgis 2004). Instead, conservation strategies should aim for a bioregional model that conserves landscapes irrespective of ownership.

Within the scope of this paper, conservation on private land refers to state under individual ownership of individuals, families or other non-public entities within an administrative protected area, or otherwise informally reserved or managed for nature conservation purposes. Although it is unlikely that private land tin meet all conservation needs, information technology can essentially contribute to increasing protected habitat and species, and maintaining connectivity (Clough 2000; Smith, Phillips, and Doret 2006). For case, 73.8% of total country within national parks in Britain is privately endemic; 45% of Costa Rica's Biological Reserves prevarication in private hands; and a minimum of 14 1000000 hectares of private country in Southern Africa is involved in some course of wild fauna management (Chacon 2005; Krug 2001; NPA U.k. 2011). Therefore, more than attention should be directed towards biodiversity-rich state that is under private ownership, in addition to the formally recognised protected areas (Knight 1999; Kirby 2003; Tikka and Kauppi 2003; Mayer and Tikka 2006; Paloniemi and Tikka 2008).

Withal, integrating private land into conservation planning and direction is complicated by the nature of landownership and the circuitous social and economic traits that are interrelated with its electric current utilize (Mascia 2003; Tikka and Kauppi 2003; Knight, Cowling, and Campbell 2006; Paloniemi and Tikka 2008; Raymond and Brown 2011). Since biodiversity exhibits public good characteristics, there is little incentive for conservation at an individual level which traditionally led to government involvement (Clough 2000; Doran 2003). Withal, top-down approaches to biodiversity conservation on private land have had negative repercussions, with landowners expressing their unwillingness to participate in conservation strategies that provide no benefits for them (Grodzińska-Jurczak and Cent 2011; Grodzińska-Jurczak et al. 2012). Knight and Cowling (2007) and Knight et al. (2010) emphasised that while defining areas of conservation priority depends primarily on ecological noesis and agreement, implementation of conservation actions is a office of conservation opportunity such as stakeholders' willingness and capacity to participate.

As a upshot, strategies related to nature conservation on private state are being explored globally from legal prescriptions to fiscal incentives and participatory site selection approaches (Doremus 2003; Frank and Muller 2003; Paloniemi and Tikka 2008). However, except for developed countries where formal efforts for conservation on individual state began relatively early on (eastward.grand. the USA, UK and Australia), most countries lack an adequate organisation with legal and government support to promote private land conservation (Figgis 2004). In addition, while protected areas have an international classification system developed by the IUCN in 1978 (modified in 1994) based on vi categories ranging from strict nature protection to areas managed for sustainable resource use, private land conservation lacks a similar system of classification (Phillips 2004).With the broader goal of agreement the role of external strategies to promote individual state conservation, this paper addresses two principal objectives:

Depict the role and effectiveness of prominent external strategies used to promote conservation on private country;
Develop a novel typology and nomenclature scheme which parallels the IUCN protected areas organization that relates the of import dimension of conservation security to strategies used for conservation on private land.

two. External interventions to promote conservation on private state

The existing spectrum of nature conservation policy options on private lands is very wide, ranging from regulatory prohibitions and government acquisition to direct incentives for individual action and public consultations in decision making on conservation policy (Ostermann 1998; Doremus 2003; Mieners and Parker 2004; Immature et al. 2005; Mayer and Tikka 2006; Kauneckis and York 2009). While some of the conservation strategies have specific biodiversity protection goals, others work more on broader conservation objectives, with biodiversity conservation being a secondary objective. To be inclusive, both types of strategies are considered in this paper. The focus of this newspaper is not to provide a detailed account of various strategies used in private land conservation as it already exists in literature such every bit Doremus (2003), George (2002) and Paloniemi and Tikka (2008); rather, the goal is to highlight the differing nature of these strategies in terms of their security, owner's participation and tenure. Nigh existing options are either involuntary (the conclusion to participate in conservation strategies does not reside with the landowner), voluntary (a landowner pro-actively decides to participate in conservation strategies) or a combination of both. Conservation success will probably be adamant every bit much by the context and calibration of the external intervention and by coordination of conservation activities across properties equally by the chosen strategy. Figure ane summarises the categories of conservation strategies discussed in this paper.

Figure 1. Types of external strategies used for conservation on individual land.

two.1. Involuntary strategies

Involuntary approaches to integrate private country into conservation include prescriptions or prohibitions past government agencies or authorities that provide for minimal participation from landowners in the decision-making process or in management of the private country being conserved.

two.one.ane. Total acquisition and/or compulsory displacement

One of the earliest strategies used for converting individual land into protected areas was compulsory acquisition of the country by the regime, as witnessed during the establishment of the first few protected areas in the earth (Stroup 1997; Polasky and Doremus 1998). While this practice has decreased in developed countries, in some developing countries such equally those in Southern asia and Eastern and Key Africa, this method is still prevalent (Adams and McShane 1996; Neuman 1998; Doremus 2003; Karnath 2005; Cernea 2005; Rangarajan and Shahbuddin 2006; Schmidt-Soltau and Brockington 2007). This strategy is based on the assumption that the relationship between human use and biodiversity is linearly negative, and human use of biological resources can only harm biodiversity (Eriksen 1999; Rangarajan and Shahbuddin 2006).

Relocation of people for the protection of nature and wildlife is a recurrent activeness in nature conservation, especially when at that place is perceived conflict betwixt traditional inhabitants and the protection of nature (Brockington 2004). There is, even so, increasing endeavor to run into the interests of the different stakeholder groups. Examples of such efforts include recognition of Indigenous Protected Areas in Commonwealth of australia, The Scheduled Tribe and Other Traditional Wood Dwellers (Recognition of Woods Rights) Act 2006 of Bharat, and resettlement through incentive programmes in countries of Eastern Africa (Cernea 2005; Figgis 2004; MoEF 2006; Schmidt-Soltau and Brockington 2007; Bhullar 2008; Springate-Baginski et al. 2009).

2.1.2. Imposed restrictions/ regulations

Another form of involuntary conservation is when private land is legally prescribed as a protected area or part of protected area, oftentimes without substantive consultation with the landowner. Authorities can too impose restrictions on state use and developmental activities that are believed to have a negative bear upon on the ecosystem/species or for conservation of a habitat. Although this strategy is less drastic and intrusive than resettlement, it confronts property rights and challenges autonomous utilise of the land. This is particularly truthful of individual country situated inside strict protected areas such as national parks where regulations and restrictions imposed over the public land extend to the private land as well (ELI 2003; Mayer and Tikka 2006; Grodzińska-Jurczak and Cent 2011; Grodzińska-Jurczak et al. 2012). The government has the selection of acquiring the land, but with limited budgets regime commonly prefer to use this model where individual state situated inside protected areas is subjected to like restrictions every bit those on public country (ELI 2003).

Imposed restrictions unaccompanied by bounty, easements or contracts are rare in developed countries today, although they exist at a smaller calibration in the course of local land-use regulations such every bit zoning or specific regulations such as those of the Habitat Conservation Programme in USA. This practice is more prevalent in 'countries in transition' as well as developing countries due to its cost effectiveness; some governments lack the financial chapters to purchase all the private land inside protected areas, or to provide compensation schemes to landowners (ELI 2003; Scroter-Schlaak and Blumentarth 2011).

2.two. Voluntary tools/strategies

In that location is a diverse array of voluntary strategies to conserve biodiversity on private land that are context-specific but adaptable to different sites or regions. Voluntariness is when the determination to implement a conservation action on private state lies with the landowner. Although the mechanisms and incentives for action may be supported past government or other agencies, the decision to get involved in such conservation action is made by the landowner.

Sometimes large, private conservation organisations purchase private country to either set aside and self-manage, or to donate to government agencies for conservation purposes, as has been witnessed in many countries of Latin America, North America, Australia and Africa (ELI 2003; Figgis, Humann, and Looker 2005; Armsworth et al. 2006; Cowell and Williams 2006; ENS 2010; Pasquini et al. 2011). Such activities are normally undertaken by organisations that have biodiversity conservation as one of its primary goals and they ofttimes secure significantly big tracts of lands. Hence, land nether such non-government organisations (NGOs) tin exist considered to be well protected both spatially and temporally. While acknowledging the important role that NGOs play in promoting conservation on private state that claim a discussion on its own on their meaning contribution, this paper volition focus more on the strategies bachelor for individual individual landowners to appoint in conservation while maintaining ownership.

2.2.1. Formal and breezy private reserves

Within the context of this paper, private reserves are defined as land under private ownership that has been set aside for the protection of nature and its components through legal or other constructive means for personal or public benefits (Figgis 2004; Chacon 2005). Information technology includes individual wild animals reserves for the protection of biodiversity as well every bit private game reserves or ranches, where game or bays hunting inside predefined, sustainable limits is permitted. The status of such protected areas can be either formal (legal status bestowed by government government based on ecological and technical criteria) or informal (no legal status and functions on the commitment of the landowner to conserve), depending on the provisions available in the country. Ownership of such reserves could too be under NGOs that purchased the land for biodiversity conservation but, as mentioned earlier in this paper, we refrain from a detailed discussion on this topic and instead concentrate on individual landowners. Private reserves vary in size, land tenure, land use, direction regime, the type of habitat protected and the objectives for germination (Krug 2001; Langholz and Krug 2005). This course of sanctioned conservation is specially advantageous when a state'south land tenure laws do non recognise conservation equally a land utilise (ELI 2003; Ramutsindela 2004).

Individual reserves and game reserves, whether endemic individually or in partnership with investors, are almost popular in countries with rich mega-fauna which generates direct income through activities such as eco-tourism and safaris, wildlife viewing and game hunting. They offer significant potential to promote conservation on individual state when other conservation options are not viable because the economic benefits are straight linked to conservation and maintenance of wildlife habitats (Lindsey et al. 2006). The tradition of private reserves for game management has been quite common in the African continent in countries such as Namibia, Southward Africa, Kenya, Zimbabwe and Tanzania and they keep to proceeds popularity (Krug 2001; Langholz and Lassoie 2001; Ramutsindela 2004; Sims-Castley et al. 2005). There are approximately 150 (or 2% of total land area) game reserves in Namibia and close to k (or 5.6% of total state area) in South Africa (Krug 2001). Similarly, Brazil has 429 registered individual reserves, and in Central America, a full of 2900 landowners are now protecting 509,000 hectares of land in formal private reserves (ELI 2003; Chacon 2005). In Australia, private reserves have been formally established as Individual Wildlife Sanctuaries and Individual Protected Areas, primarily endemic by larger private companies and supported by the National Reserve System programme (Figgis 2004). All the same, other forms of government support in the country are also provided for smaller 'off reserves' and 'mural reserves' (Binning and Feilman 2000; Figgis, Humann, and Looker 2005). A similar private initiative in the U.k. under the National Nature Reserves programme allows for private country to be declared protected with the approval from statutory conservation bodies, although these reserves are more common to larger individual organisations than individuals (Reid 2011).

2.2.two. Conservation easements/restrictions/covenants

Compared to the other strategies used to promote conservation on private land, use of conservation easements is relatively new but it has become one of the most popular strategies used now. With involuntary approaches increasingly considered intrusive, expensive and generating conflict over holding rights, easements offer a more than effective and less expensive tool (Chief 1999; Gattuso 2008). A conservation easement, in its most bones grade, is a voluntary but legally binding agreement between a landowner (or a grantor) and an system such equally a state trust or a authorities bureau (or a grantee) in which the landowner relinquishes some rights over the land to protect the natural landscape in exchange for economical benefits through the auction of developmental rights and tax relief (Bernstein and Mitchell 2005; Gattuso 2008; TNC 2011; Yonavjak and Gartner 2011). Country trusts are non-turn a profit organisations that undertake or assistance in conservation easement acquisitions (LTA 2010). Restrictions on land employ are commonly in perpetuity and applicative fifty-fifty when the ownership of the land changes through sale or inheritance (Clough 2000; Figgis 2004). Easements have been developed for agricultural lands, private forests and country with historical, cultural or breathtaking values (TNC 2011). The economic benefits to the landowner from placing land nether a conservation easement derives from a reduction in holding value which reduces the landowner'south revenue enhancement burden and/or the sale of evolution rights on that belongings, which sometimes comes close to the value of the state itself. Restricting developmental activities on private land lowers the value of the state and this deviation in value (earlier and later the easement was formulated) generates the taxation relief (Bernstein and Mitchell 2005; Figgis, Humann, and Looker 2005; TNC 2011). In addition, depending on the country, conservation easements may exist eligible for an income tax deduction if they are considered a charitable donation. For example, farmers and ranchers in the U.s. were eligible for a taxation deduction for upward to 100% of the value of the land (50% for non-farmers) nether the Nutrient and Energy Security Act of 2007 (USDA-ERS 2008).

The use of conservation easements or covenants began in the 1950s in the The states, and they are at present being used in countries across Latin America, Africa, the UK and Commonwealth of australia (Leva 2002; Gattuso 2008; Fishburn et al. 2009). Particularly in the US where 85% of the federally listed endangered species occur on private land, this approach assumes an of import office for biodiversity conservation (Rissman et al. 2007; Stein et al. 2010). Yonavjak and Gartner (2011) reported that conservation easements comprehend more than thirty million acres in the US. Strongly related to conservation easements is the exponential growth in the number of land trusts in the U.s.a., from 1263 in 2000 to 1699 in 2010 (Gattuso 2008). According to the 2010 census of U.s.a.'s Country Trust Alliance, state trusts together control about 19.two million hectares (or 3.5% of total private land in the Usa), with two.3% under national land trusts and 1.ii% conserved by state and local land trusts. The Nature Conservancy, the largest national country trust, accounts for 37% of the total land owned by land trusts in the country, with approximately 13% of this land in the course of conservation easements (LTA 2010; TNC 2011).

Although a detailed discussion on conservation easements is beyond the scope of this paper, it is of import to acknowledge its significance in addressing economic and conservation needs together, and the caste to which easements could bridge the needs of nature conservation and the landowner.

2.2.3. Other incentive-based actions (conservation contracts/programmes)

Another closely related approach is to utilise incentives that brand information technology attractive for landowners to apply conservation measures voluntarily. For incentive based programmes to exist constructive, information technology is imperative to have well-defined conservation goals that are both ecologically sound and acceptable to landowners. Such programmes or contracts typically provide economical incentives for activities that heighten or restore the quality of the country, or otherwise limit activities that have negative impacts on the state of biodiversity (George 2002; Doremus 2003; Mayer and Tikka 2006).

The type and number of voluntary programmes are large and diverse, with perchance the largest number of examples coming from the United states. Many states have different incentive programmes that apply cost sharing, technical assist through conservation contracts (an agreement between landowner and regime for conservation actions that the landholder will undertake in exchange for a payment from government), or rewards for conservation initiatives that target specific species or habitat such as agricultural lands, wetlands and private forests (Clough 2000; Doremus 2003; Mayer and Tikka 2006). Some examples of these programmes include the Private Dedication Program in Kentucky, the Landowner of the Year Plan in Colorado, the Indiana Classified Forests Act, the Wild animals Habitat Contracts in California and The Pheasant Habitat Improvement Programme in Colorado. George (2002) and Doremus (2003) provided a detailed account of these state-level programmes in the United states of america.

In addition to country-specific programmes in the U.s., in that location are several national incentive and cost-share programmes such as the Department of Agriculture's Wild animals Habitat Incentives Program, The Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP), The Grassland Reserve Programme (GRP), The Healthy Forests Reserve Program (HFRP) and The Conservation Reserve Programme (CRP) (USDA 2011). The CRP is particularly innovative in that information technology provides for the retirement of marginal agricultural land past offering compensation to individual landholders that divert land from agricultural product to biodiversity conservation (Clough 2000; USDA 2011). Like examples exist in the European context, where several regional and national programmes are based on the incentive model. The Agri-Environs Scheme (AES) under the Common agricultural policy (CAP) of the European union is the well-nigh well-known and widely implemented plan. AES pays approximately £400 million (or US$628 million) a yr to farmers and land managers and covers 66% of England'south agricultural country (Natural England 2009). Information technology supports programmes that offer compensatory payments for the voluntary provision of ecology services on farmland by landowners such as maintenance of native species on farmland, and the management of hedgerows and water regimes (Said and Thoyer 2009). The amount and nature of compensation depends on the type of environment-friendly practices adopted or the foregone benefits considering of the conservation measures. Other examples from Europe include Finland'southward Natural Values Trading Program, Deutschland and Portugal's fiscal transfer tools, Austria's Natural Forests Reserve Program and Sweden'southward Nature Conservation Agreements (Frank and Muller 2003; DGARD 2005; Mayer and Tikka 2006; Swedish EPA 2007; Paloniemi and Tikka 2008; Ring, 2008).

Forest certification is besides an incentive programme in that it provides an opportunity for private foresters to undergo formal assessment co-ordinate to predefined sustainable standards in render for better market prices for harvested woods products such as timber. While several forest certification programmes are bachelor in the The states such as the American Tree Farm System, the Forest Stewardship Council and the Sustainable Woods Initiative, this machinery of using market place need to promote sustainable use of resource is also beingness adopted in other countries such as Uk, Commonwealth of australia, several Eu fellow member states, and several countries in Latin America such equally Brazil (Imaflora, Societé Generale de Surveillance's Qualifier Plan) and Chile (Crawford 2006; May 2006; Cubbage et al. 2009; AFS 2011; FSC 2011; PEFC 2012).

2.ii.4. Voluntary not-binding conservation activity

The external approaches discussed thus far create binding or formal obligations for the landowner, just in that location is growing interest amid landowners (especially in developed countries) to conserve their land based on growing awareness of the benefits of nature conservation such as increasing the 'attractiveness' of their land to support activities such as eco/agro-tourism. Participation in a programme is not binding, assuasive participants to undo at any time. Because the program does not offer financial incentives, minimal financial resource are required from the government (Stoneham et al. 2000). However, it also requires landowners' environmental awareness and willingness or capacity to participate. For instance, in Commonwealth of australia, State for Wild fauna is a voluntary programme that attracts landholders convinced of the value of conservation who then seek communication and expertise to maintain their belongings for conservation. Conservation development, practised in the The states likewise as some countries in Latin America, is another example of voluntary initiative which combines land development with functional protection of natural resources (Milder 2007). It is a course of controlled land use, where development of an area is balanced by designing it sustainably in order to take open up spaces, or protected farmlands and other wildlife habitats.

2.2.5. Conservation Networks

The increasing awareness and growing interest of landowners to integrate conservation with economic values has led to the formation of several associations/networks/organisations of landowners that share information and resources on conservation options. Although such associations are non directly responsible for implementation of conservation strategies, they play an of import office through information dissemination that bridges the gap between individual landowners and implementing agencies. The Private Landowner Network and the Cooperative Conservation America in the US are examples of such networks; Australia has the Conservation Direction Networks while the European Landowners Organisation and National Ecological Network (now a part of the Pan European Network of Protected Nature Areas (PEEN)) serve a similar purpose in the European context at a regional and national level (Figgis, Humann, and Looker 2005; PLN 2006; CCA 2007; ELO 2010; COE 2011).

ii.3. Mixed strategies

Sometimes the traditional approach of top-down prescription is combined with 1 or more voluntary lesser-upwardly strategies to achieve conservation outcomes. This often occurs in public protected areas that comprise patches of private land and so they may be the only viable pick of country use due to other evolution restrictions already imposed by governments.

Examples of mixed strategies include Transfer of Development Rights (TDRs) and mitigation cyberbanking. TDRs are circuitous market-based instruments that are undertaken by local governments to promote the transfer of evolution rights (thereby 'selling' the particular correct) from ecologically sensitive areas (sending areas) to areas with college development potential (receiving areas) (Daniels 1998; Johnston and Madison 1997). Oft, the incentive for landowners to convert their land into a 'sending area' is because it is already recognised by the regime for its conservation value and therefore information technology has limited economic viability for the possessor based on the restrictions already in place. Mitigation banking, primarily used to restore, heighten or preserve wetlands, is another example. It runs on a credit organisation that offsets adverse impacts of developmental projects on like ecosystems (EPA 2012).

Covering different types of mixed strategies is across the scope of this paper due to the diversity of such strategies based on context and scale. However, it is of import to recognise their potential in conservation because they seek to balance summit-downwards and bottom-up approaches that target both collective and individual interests.

3. A proposed organization for classifying conservation on private land

Private country in conservation is increasingly significant with human demographic and development force per unit area limiting the amount of state available for designation as protected areas. The impetus for developing a classification organisation for protected areas past the IUCN was to monitor and record the growing global protected areas network for conservation in a systematic way by categorising them based on their direction objectives (Bishop et al. 2004; Phillips 2004; IUCN 2012). Thus far, private lands under different forms of conservation strategies (whether involuntary or voluntary) have no clear stardom in terms of the extent and duration of conservation security they provide. The proposed classification system is a pragmatic i that seeks to provide a platform on which to describe, understand and perhaps evaluate private lands. It tin as well deed as a tool for planning protected area systems and wider bioregional conservation planning; encourage governments and managers of private protected areas to develop coordinated systems that are tailored to national and local circumstances; and provide a framework for the collection, handling and broadcasting of information about private protected areas.

The framework for assigning the attributes to each class addresses the following:

Conservation security: the extent of enforceable protection provided.
Permanence of protection: time elapsing of the conservation security.
Holding rights: rights surrendered (and retained) by the landowner.
Management purpose: intent of management actions or interventions.

These functional attributes will reflect the reasons behind protecting a site, the intended object/characteristic being protected, and how it affects the landowner in his utilize of the land. The system we propose classifies conservation strategies into categories that approximate the degree of regulatory protection as in case of the IUCN classification, merely is more than explicit nearly the level of conservation security. Farther, it takes into account the distribution of belongings rights and the purpose of management.

Property rights have been conceptualised as existence a bundle of rights similar to a 'bundle of sticks' where each 'stick' represents one right associated with the belongings. It is possible to divest some rights while retaining others (Schlager and Ostrom 1992; Rissman 2013). The broader groups of rights associated with a private property are: (1) right to use and possess (includes access, management and extraction rights); (ii) correct to exclude; and (3) right to transfer (or alienate). Schlager and Ostrom (1992) defined the specific rights equally follows:

Management: the right to be able to regulate development or other changes on the land;
Withdrawal: the correct to excerpt resources from the land;
Access: the right to physically access the land;
Exclusion: the right to physically exclude outsiders from accessing the country;
Alienation: the right to sell or charter the land, along with the other rights associated with information technology (management, exclusion, access, exclusion).

The management purpose and conservation security are co-dependent and together they determine the direction actions. The management purposes accept been developed by taking into consideration the Australian Land Use and Direction Nomenclature System (ALUM) that takes into account both public and individual lands, and classifies based on generality, level of intervention, prime use and hierarchical structure (ALUM 2010). Nosotros classified the direction regimes into the post-obit broader categories based on the use of the country later on a conservation strategy is implemented:

Nature conservation: land is primarily for conservation purposes, essentially of natural ecosystems that are already present;
Managed resources protection: land is restricted to protect specific natural resources or ecosystem through agile management or interventions;
Direction co-existing with product: state is primarily used for production and sustainable consumption, while considering ecological dimension of such deportment;
Production and resource use: land is for production and consumption and natural surroundings (if protected) is an unintentional secondary benefit.

A brief description of limitations is provided with each conservation strategy. The proposed six classes show rough progression from high and formal conservation security for a long elapsing (or perpetuity) to decreased security and informality in implementation. The classes are described in Tabular array 1.

Tabular array 1. Proposed typology for classifying private land involved in biodiversity conservation.

Categories I (a) and I (b) restrict development and provide conservation benefits for a long period of fourth dimension, if not in perpetuity. Category I(a) includes private land that has been purchased (with championship) from, or donated by private landowners to conservation-oriented organisations for the protection of biodiversity. Assuming that the management purpose behind the purchase of the land was for conservation benefits, which is typical of large international NGOs working for biodiversity conservation, this class of protection is considered to exist highly secure and the new owner bears all the property rights. Category I(b) includes private land protected through easements (without championship) that exist in perpetuity. Based on the terms of the easement, the owner usually surrenders rights over withdrawal (although agricultural activeness may be allowed in some easements), direction that involves permanent development, and exclusion (if dictated in the easement), while maintaining access and breach rights. Individual state under this category targets biodiversity conservation (if stated in the conditions of the easement) by attaching evolution restrictions to the land and hence the management purpose is the aforementioned as Category I(a). Lands under Category I(a) that are endemic and managed by NGOs depend on the integrity and capacity of the organization to accomplish conservation outcomes and are still theoretically vulnerable to poor state direction practices or divestment past the NGO which may not be legally actionable by third parties. In theory, Category I(b) easements are legally enforceable if the landowner fails to abide by the terms of the easement.

Although conservation easements have been 1 of the almost popular instruments to engage landowners, their effectiveness in achieving actual conservation outcomes is subject to fence. Taking the The states as an example, less than 2% of private family unit wood owners have entered state into easements, which is significant because 82.6% of the forested country in the Eastern states and 31.i% of forested land in the Western states is under private buying (USDA: FS-696 2000; Ma et al. 2012). Similarly, agricultural land (grazing, forest-use land, cropland, farm roads) represents 51.eight% of the total land area of the country, yet less than one% has been placed in conservation easements (Lubowski et al. 2002; NIFA 2009). Moreover, the monitoring of state post easement becomes difficult, especially if a single trust holds a large number of easements. There is also a pregnant increase in the number of local and national land trusts and this has generated speculation over the role of country trusts as unbiased agencies or mediators for the government to convert private land into public. Gattusso (2008) provided an in-depth critique of the use of conservation easements every bit turn a profit making ventures by country trusts. In addition, as Byron, The netherlands, and Schuele (2001) and the Joint Committee on Taxation The states (JCT 2005) highlighted, the primary benefit from conservation easements are tax benefits that appear to drive the process, which means protection of land for its intrinsic conservation value may not exist the main goal for landowners. Further, tax deductions require that the local or national governments are flush enough to bear the loss of revenue from taxes, which makes this tool challenging to implement in developing countries that struggle to support basic social services through revenues.

Category Ii includes individual land where developmental activity or other state use changes accept been legally restricted through legislation and prescribed policies. This category includes ii types of private land: private holdings within protected areas (such as national parks, or in case of Europe – Natura 2000 sites on private land) where the regulations of the protected surface area extend to private land; and second, private land whose usage is restricted by government through legislation, or legally enforceable land use plans. In such cases, the landowner surrenders specific withdrawal and management rights, only involuntarily and hence credence may be lower. The management purpose could be broader nature conservation or targeted resource management. For case, the Endangered Species Act in the US legally protects endangered species and its associated habitat irrespective of whether these occur on public or private state.

Governmental policies that use involuntary controls over country employ are becoming less preferable (Harrop 1999). The effectiveness of restrictive policies depend significantly on the general awareness among people about the importance of biodiversity conservation since straight benefits to the landowners are oft not obvious (Hesselink et al. 2007; CBD 2009; Laycock et al. 2009).

Category III includes environmental contractual obligations often administered through authorities programmes designed to promote conservation outcomes through meliorate land/water management. Because these programmes are generally of a fixed term (e.g. 10 years) and subject to continuing government appropriations, they are less secure than Categories I and 2. Based on the terms dictated by the specific programme, the landowner relinquishes his correct of withdrawal and/or management. The primary purpose is to manage targeted natural resources and this frequently includes safeguarding or promoting overall biodiversity equally its primary or secondary objective. This category includes conservation contracts on individual land administered through programmes such every bit the Agri- Environmental Scheme of Eu and the US Department of Agronomics's Wetlands Reserve Programme.

Category IV includes lands that implement voluntary conservation activities, but the activities are recognised, sanctioned or certified past an external body. Virtually of the rights are retained past the landowner, including extraction, but the extraction of resource must remain inside defined limits to attain external recognition. Conservation outcomes appear less secure than the previous categories because the length of landowner engagement with the game reserve activity or certification program is not prescribed and tin can be withdrawn without significant penalties for the landowner.

Game reserves and private forest management certification programmes are the leading examples. According to Figgis (2004), notwithstanding, the long-term sustainability of such non-binding conservation practices is uncertain because the state could be sold or inherited by those not interested in continuing the reserves. Further, in the case of game reserves and certified forests, the main incentive for conservation might itself get corrupted due to unsustainable harvesting (Deere 2011).

The impetus backside forest certification is to promote sustainable harvesting of forests in developing countries suffering from accelerated deforestation. However, certification has been observed to be more popular in developed regions such every bit North America and Europe (Cashore et al. 2005; May 2006). In 2006, FAO estimated that 7% of the earth's forests had been certified, most all on private land. Challenges in certification include the cost of certification and generating consumer awareness nearly the added value of certified products (Hartsfield and Ostermeier 2003; Anderson and Hansen 2004; Archer, Kozak, and Balsillie 2005).

Category 5 includes private land that is voluntarily managed to conserve a landscape or specific natural resource, without any specific economic or financial incentives, and hence all rights related to the property are retained by the owner. The landowners undertake such measures because of their sensation and/or passion for nature, or when the conservation measures they have already been taking in the past entail no pregnant cost. Thus the purpose of managing such state is to protect the relatively natural environment that can co-exist with product or current land use. Intentional, voluntary wild animals conservation without incentives is rare, but the advantage of this blazon of conservation is that because it attracts people predisposed to conservation, the implementation cost is minimal and is a powerful motivation, once established. However, because management for conservation outcomes rests purely on the motivation of the landowner, there is no security in the continuance of conservation activities in the absence of formal agreements (Stoneham et al. 2000). In add-on, records on the proportion of land under this category would exist difficult to maintain, unless there are special regulations or schemes from governing authorities (such as the State for Wildlife programme of Australia) that require announcement or registration of such parcels of state.

Finally, Category VI includes 'undeveloped' private land, that is, state that has conservation potential merely does non have any active conservation strategy or management for conservation. The potential biodiversity benefits from these lands derive from the inherent or latent features of the country rather than any conscious activity on the part of the landowner. For biodiversity conservation on private state to be more constructive in the future, a primary objective should be to identify land in this category with meaning biodiversity potential, both in terms of ecological priority and landowner opportunity, and make conservation of this country more explicit and secure. Generating awareness amongst landowners through ecology education would play a meaning office in addition to the other strategies discussed in this paper.

4. Challenges and opportunities

Unlike the IUCN categories of protected areas, private protected areas accept emerged mostly as a issue of endeavours that are individualistic and targeted at the micro-scale. Therefore, the purpose of the proposed nomenclature organization is besides to provide insights into the gaps that need to be filled before private protected areas can be unified by a classification arrangement. We summarise the chief challenges and possible opportunities in implementing such a classification organisation.

Data collection: The primary challenge is that basic data on the acreage of private land involved in conservation at a national level is rare and more than specific data on the corporeality of private land devoted to conservation at local and regional levels is lacking in most countries. All the same, some conservation strategies (Categories Ia, Ib, III and IV) require obligatory record keeping and/or monitoring and therefore access to such information will be relatively easier than for the other categories where at that place is no formal monitoring. It is imperative to create a basic database, starting from local level and scaling upwards, on the acreage of individual land involved in conservation, which, in turn, will involve addressing the consequence of combining all data sources, as mentioned beneath.

Collation of information: Even for the categories where data are available, the main hindrance lies in the scale of such data, which is usually bachelor only at a local level, and in collating the information from different sources (such as NGOs, environmental agencies, land trusts). Therefore, there needs to be a unifying torso/agency that would manage and monitor the collation of data. This is but possible when national legislations recognise and reverberate individual protected areas, and this leads us to the next claiming mentioned below.

Adoption into national strategies: Management and monitoring of protected areas under the IUCN categories is possible because of the presence of an over-arching body (the IUCN) that defines the standards, and the coherence between national environmental policies that back up this classification system, thus making it possible to reflect the categories at a national or local level. National environmental databases on protected areas allow for combining local information into national data, while UNEP-WCMC (Earth Conservation Monitoring Commission) and IUCN's WCPA (Globe Commission on Protected Areas) in turn provide regional and global assessments such equally the World Database on Protected Areas (WDPA). The assessment of individual protected areas will require similar initiatives, and therefore categories of individual protected areas need to be recognised and reflected in a state'south environmental policy as an accepted form of protected area, much similar the IUCN categories.

Monitoring conservation condition: In order to receive recognition and policy back up, the classification system for private land conservation will need to prove its value to biodiversity conservation over fourth dimension. Related to this issue is the coordination of conservation activities across properties. Fragmented and isolated conservation actions on private land are less likely to produce potent conservation impacts. This means monitoring the conservation status of private lands involved in conservation. Thus far, no systematic monitoring of the different categories at a national level exists, although in that location is monitoring of specific strategies (such every bit those in Categories Ib, 3 and IV) at a local level. To accept coherent data, the criteria for conservation status should exist tracked at both national and site levels. Conservation targets (species, ecosystems, landscapes) can exist prioritised based on the immediacy of threat to persistence. Site level criteria should represent weather and indicators which can be measured or described in a standardised style within the individual locality. Although it is not possible to be very specific beyond individual cases (due east.g. 2 tracts of country that are being tied under conservation easements), just it is possible to accept broader criteria and indicators that tin can exist coherent across sites. For this there needs to exist collaboration among the different agencies responsible for implementing these strategies. The national level criteria should sum upwards those used on the site level within the overall criteria for conservation status.

The availability of such information and the coordination of actions would help to address the important research question most the human relationship betwixt conservation security, identified through various categories of conservation on private land, and the degree to which biodiversity is actually conserved on such land.

5. Conclusions

This newspaper reviews conservation strategies and proposes a typology based on an underlying dimension of conservation security. Each category has been defined in terms of its characteristics and the variables that ensure biodiversity conservation. These variables can also be adopted equally key features of hereafter conservation policies and actions that focus on successful implementation of conservation strategies on private land. The vast majority of private lands (Category VI) are insecure for conservation and unlikely to produce meaning conservation outcomes except past risk. Therefore efforts to promote conservation on private state will need to focus on moving state nether Category Six to any of the other categories with higher conservation security through educational efforts along with other strategies presented herein.

Individual lands possess different levels of ecological value for biodiversity conservation equally well as conservation opportunity based on landowners' capacity and credence. Private land with loftier ecological value also as high landowner acceptance of conservation goals will require minimal intervention to move this state into Categories I–V; however, lands with high ecological value but low credence of conservation goals by landowners will require some incentives to make conservation more attractive and plausible (Byron, Holland, and Schuele 2001; Knight et al. 2010; Raymond and Brownish 2011).

Securing conservation outcomes on individual land tin can be achieved through a variety of strategies described herein, but the most secure categories will bear the highest social cost. Identifying the socio-ecological context of private state conservation and explicitly including conservation opportunity as a guiding principle tin can reduce the toll of private land conservation and increase conservation security. Achieving greater conservation security for Category VI lands tin can be furthered past recognising that private country with current high conservation value in this category is probably non due to take a chance, but rather is a upshot of environmentally-friendly state direction practices that reverberate some landowner understanding of the importance of sustainable state utilize. Securing longer-term conservation commitments from these landowners should be a priority.

When public goods such as wildlife occur on individual backdrop, information technology is almost impossible to manage such common resources without treading on some of the individual belongings rights. Holding rights surrendered and retained past the landowner highlights the social and economical costs of conservation on that land. Where the landowner has voluntarily agreed to surrender some of his rights, the particular strategy (and the benefits information technology provides) represents the conservation cost for protecting that country. Property rights also seem to take a relation with the conservation security provided by the categories. From our classification table, we observe that the extent of conservation security on private country is inversely proportional to the property rights retained by the landowner, that is, more than rights from the 'bundle of rights' retained by the landowner equates to less conservation security.

In the practice of biodiversity conservation, more attention has been devoted to conserving the patches of protected areas and corridors linking them than the matrix of private lands that surround these lands. This is understandable given the challenges of private state conservation. However, ecologists and biologists recognise the importance of private state in biodiversity conservation and have expressed this by identifying specific private lands as areas of conservation importance. The Natura 2000 site delineation in Europe is a good example.

David Brower, a well-known environmental leader, once said, "All of our ecology victories are temporary, and all of our defeats are permanent" (Mark 2013). And then it is with conservation on private land. The proposed classification of private land conservation serves to highlight the limited, insecure and tenuous nature of conservation gains made to appointment. To accelerate conservation on private land, nosotros consider information technology vitally important to account for not only the extent of conservation on private land just too the security of the state that is conserved. Identifying individual land conservation opportunities that intersect ecological priority areas is a pragmatic pathway to increasing the benefit of conservation on private land.

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Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/09640568.2013.875463