Fire management on private conservation lands:knowledge, perceptions and actions of landholdersin eastern Australia

Lucy G. HallidayA,G, J. Guy CastleyA,B,G, James A. FitzsimonsC,D,Cuong TranA,E and Jan WarnkenF

AEnvironmental Futures Centre, Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University,

QLD 4222, Australia.BInternational Centre for EcotourismResearch, Griffith School of Environment, GriffithUniversity,

QLD 4222, Australia.CThe Nature Conservancy, PO Box 57, Carlton South, VIC 3053, Australia.DSchool of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway,

Burwood, VIC 3125, Australia.EPresent address: Serco Sodexo Defence Services, PO Box 1861, Milton, QLD 4064, Australia.FAustralian Rivers Institute, Griffith School of Environment, Griffith University, QLD 4222,

Australia.GCorresponding authors. Email: l.halliday@hotmail.com; g.castley@griffith.edu.au

Abstract. Fire is an important natural disturbance process within the Australian landscape, but the complex andhazardous nature of fire creates a conservation management dilemma. For landholders of private conservation lands,management for conservation of biodiversity and risk reduction is complicated. Private conservation landholders in

eastern Australia directed far less effort towards fire management than other conservation management actions, despiteclearly acknowledging the risk and associated responsibilities of firemanagement on their lands. Nonetheless, landholdersdid undertake actions to reduce fuel hazards and prepare for wildfire events on their land. Despite the established role and

benefits of fire to many ecosystems in the region, landholder understanding of the ecological role of fire was generallypoor. Few landholders were aware of ecologically appropriate fire regimes for the vegetation types on their property, andfew undertook fire management actions to achieve ecological outcomes. Site-specific obstacles, lack of fire managementknowledge and experience, and legal and containment concerns contributed to the low level of fire management observed.

There is a need for property-specific fire management planning across all private conservation lands, to further integrateecological fire requirements into biodiversity management, and prioritise actions that aim to improve conservationoutcomes while safeguarding life and property.

Additional keywords: biodiversity conservation, conservation covenant, ecological process, private landholder.

Received 17 December 2010, accepted 25 June 2011, published online 3 January 2012

Introduction

Public lands form the foundations of traditional protected areasystems in many countries. However, opportunities for

increasing the extent of public protected areas, as the corner-stone of biodiversity conservation, are limited in many coun-tries, because under such circumstances there is often a strong

bias towards private land tenure (Knight 1999; Fitzsimons andWescott 2001; Gallo et al. 2009). In Australia, an increasedawareness of the importance of biodiversity conservation

across all land tenures has resulted in the rapid expansion ofprivate land conservation programs over the last two decades(Fitzsimons andWescott 2001; Figgis et al. 2005). The necessityto measure and account for conservation outcomes associated

with the management of these lands is required in parallel withregional conservation planning initiatives (Parrish et al. 2003;Fitzsimons andWescott 2008a, 2008b) given that many of these

private conservation lands lie embedded within the larger con-servation landscape. Indeed, the location of a private conser-vation property (e.g. if adjacent to a public protected area) may

dictate the nature of management strategies considered bylandholders. Yet we know little about the management actionsand outcomes on private conservation lands in Australia

(Fitzsimons and Wescott 2007).Striving to maintain and improve biodiversity values and

manage threats to conservation lands is an ongoing battle forpublic and privatemanagers alike. One such threat, which is also

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International Journal of Wildland Fire 2012, 21, 197–209

http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF10148

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an important ecological process, is fire (Gill andWilliams 1996;Bradstock et al. 2003; Pressey et al. 2007). The management offire as a natural disturbance process is unlike managing for

introduced or invasive species, soil erosion, water quality,habitat regeneration or threatened species as fire is one of thefew management tools that can also affect life and property

(Blake 2003). Fire management on conservation lands requiresthe maintenance, or improvement, of biodiversity values, whilesimultaneously ensuring that such actions do not pose a risk to

human and built assets in and around these conservation lands(Whelan 2002; Blake 2003). Buxton et al. (2011) have recentlyexposed the failures of regulatory land-use planning in peri-urban and rural settings where landholders continue to be at risk

on properties with high biodiversity and conservation value.Therefore, understanding both the social and biophysicalaspects of private conservation management is critical for the

success of such conservation efforts and the maintenance ofessential ecological processes.

In the fire-prone landscapes of Australia, recommended fire

management actions are publicly available to landholders toreduce fire risks (NSW RFS 2010; Q RFS 2011). This informa-tion is strongly focussed on life and property protection, and risk

reduction in response to fire management legislation and policy(Tarrant 2003; FNCBFMC 2009). However, for landholderswho have chosen tomake a formal commitment to protecting theconservation values of their land, fire management becomes

more complex. Meeting ecological fire management objectivesoften requires specific infrastructure, equipment, skills, physicalassistance and knowledge of the many different and complex

facets of fire. This can be a difficult task for individual land-holders of conservation lands who lack the institutional backingavailable tomanagers of public conservation lands (Binning and

Young 1997; Fitzsimons and Carr 2007). Therefore, how land-holders balance the combination of multifaceted ecological firerequirements with risk reduction activities requires furtherexamination to better understand the likely conservation out-

comes of private conservation initiatives. To this end, there arethree areas that require specific attention, namely the protectionof life and property; ecological fire management; and attitudes,

perceptions and obstacles to fire management.

Protecting life and property – risk reduction andpreparedness

There is no global approach to themanagement of fire on privateland. In some countries, such as the US, fire authorities invest

significant resources into encouraging and educating land-holders tomanage fire risks on their properties in preparation forwildfires (Monroe et al. 2004; Nelson et al. 2005; McCaffreyand Rhodes 2009). In Australia, some states, such as Victoria,

have Wildfire Management Overlays designed to assist in localgovernment planning to reduce risk (Hughes and Mercer 2009),but the effectiveness of such overlays has been questioned

(e.g. Buxton et al. 2011). Furthermore, the approach to fire riskon private land is often directed at active landholder involve-ment, where households are encouraged to develop ‘Bushfire

Survival Plans’ demonstrating their attention to fire manage-ment responsibility, safety and property protection (McCaffreyand Rhodes 2009). Available guidelines direct managementactivities to common risk factors such as removing or reducing

available fuel from around assets and other high-hazard zones,to create a defensible space (Nelson et al. 2005) while alsopaying attention to the maintenance of firefighting equipment.

In some cases, the implementation of planned fires may also benecessary to reduce fire intensity and maximise success ofwildfire suppression (Bradstock et al. 1998). However, the

extent to which these recommendations are adopted by land-holders is poorly known. In addition, effective guidance fromregulatory land-use planning strategies that consider fire as a

potential threat appear to be limited (Buxton et al. 2011).

Ecological fire management

Ecological fire management aims to reduce fire risk throughpreparation and risk reduction, while ensuring management

actions are ecologically appropriate. There are two broad areasof fire management of direct relevance to landholders managingtheir properties for conservation. First, in order to combineconservation efforts and risk reduction on properties, fire

management planning is necessary (J. Gilroy and C. Tran,unpubl. data). Second, the protection of fire-sensitive species orcommunities (Fensham 1996) and the use of prescribed burning

(Bradstock et al. 1998) are closely linked to the maintenance ofecologically appropriate fire regimes (including: fire season,intensity, interval and burn coverage) (Tran and Wild 2000;

Watson 2001; Kenny et al. 2004) that protect biodiversity valueswithin the landscape. However, there is a shortage of literaturefocussing on the maintenance of ecologically appropriatefire management practices and the use of fire as a tool to achieve

conservation objectives on private conservation lands.

Attitudes, perceptions and actions

Community and individual attitudes towards fire risk, propertymanagement, fuel management and preparedness have been thefocus of previous studies (Monroe et al. 2004; Field and Jensen2005; Nelson et al. 2005), where actions manifest past experi-

ences and perceptions of risk, as well as fundamental differencesin attitudes and values (Tarrant 2003; McCaffrey 2004; Monroeet al. 2004). In addition, location, available resources, time and

skills can also affect the implementation of management strat-egies (Nelson et al. 2005). Furthermore, the provision ofinformation to raise risk awareness is not automatically coupled

to preventative action (McCaffrey 2004). Many personal andsite-specific factors influence the type of action taken, theirpractical implementation and intended outcomes (Tarrant 2003;

Monroe et al. 2004; Nelson et al. 2005), but these attitudes,values and actions have not previously been documented forowners of private conservation lands. It is important to improveour understanding of these factors, as the adoption of fire

management as a conservation tool by landholders is not solelyan environmental issue, but one that must achieve both personaland land-management objectives (Pannell et al. 2006).

Here, we attempt to reconcile social and ecological objec-tives related to the management of fire on private conservationlands. We base our analysis on an in-depth investigation of how

and what landholders of private conservation lands in Australiado to manage for fire and ecologically appropriate fire regimesby addressing each of the key areas outlined earlier. We alsothen compare landholder attitudes and perceptions with those of

198 Int. J. Wildland Fire L. G. Halliday et al.

fire management professionals as well as private land conserva-tion program administrators. In doing so, we seek to provideboth landholders and conservation practitioners with a means to

target areas for improving the management of ecological pro-cesses on private conservation lands.

Methods

Study area

Our investigation focussed on the south-east Queensland (SEQLD) and north-east New South Wales (NE NSW) region of

Australia. The 1200-km2 region includes six local governmentadministrative areas: Gold Coast City and Scenic Rim RegionalCouncils in SE QLD, and Lismore City, Tweed, Byron andKyogle Shire Councils in NE NSW (Fig. 1). The area supports a

diverse range of vegetation types including: heath, scrublands,grasslands, wetlands, coastal littoral, lowland and tropicalrainforest, open woodlands, and dry and wet eucalypt-

dominated forests (Pressey et al. 1996; Bentley and Catterall1997). Fire-sensitive rainforests occur as discontinuous patchesin a matrix of fire-prone eucalypt forest (Kitching et al. 2010)

and agricultural lands, emphasising the importance of investi-gating fire management on private land. Climatic conditions aredescribed as warm temperate (ranging from temperate to sub-

tropical) in NE NSW (Pressey et al. 1996), and subtropical inSE QLD (Jenkins and Kitching 1990). Mean annual rainfall forSE QLD is 800–2000mm, and 1200–2000mm in NE NSW,with some areas in both states experiencing rainfall outside this

range (Bureau ofMeteorology 2009a). The dominant fire seasonfor the study region is spring to early summer (Bureau ofMeteorology 2009b).

Determination of private conservation lands

In SE QLD and NE NSW, several active state and regionalprivate conservation programs offer a range of binding, fixed-term and non-binding voluntary conservation agreements to

landholders. There are both a high diversity of agreementtypes and a high number of participants within the study area(Halliday andWarnken 2008) and these are collectively referred

to as private conservation lands (PCLs) in the present study(Table 1). It is possible for landholders to participate in multipleprograms (resulting in multiple agreements over the one prop-erty) at any one time, depending on location and eligibility

(Halliday and Warnken 2008). For properties with multipleagreements, the more legally binding agreement was used as theprimary agreement description where possible during analysis

(e.g. Nature Refuge over Land for Wildlife).

‘Landholder’ questionnaire survey

Information on the management and maintenance of fireregimes on individual PCLs was canvassed through a ques-

tionnaire survey distributed among PCL landholders. Ques-tionnaires were administered by mail (Mangione 1995; Frazerand Lawley 2000) between 30 October and 17 November 2009

owing to the large number and wide geographic distribution ofPCLs throughout the study area. Questionnaire packages (cov-ering letter, questionnaire, reply-paid envelope to researcher andprogram letter of endorsement) were provided to conservation

stewardship program administrators in each local governmentarea for distribution to 516 landholders. Landholder privacy waspreserved by administrators uniquely coding each question-

naire. A cover letter, sent to each landholder in the questionnairepackage, was used as the informed consent mechanism,explaining that return of a completed questionnaire was notifi-

cation of consent. The letter introduced the research aims,questionnaire distribution and data collection process, as well asrelevant ethical and privacy considerations and a glossary of

terms.The questionnaire contained 45 questions estimated to take

20–30min to complete. A mixture of open-ended, closed(single, dichotomous and multichotomous) and scale-response

questions of single and multiple answer options (Frazer andLawley 2000) were used. Questions were grouped under threethemes identified by separate headers in the questionnaire as

property information, biodiversity management and fire man-agement. The questions related to fire management were spe-cifically focussed on gauging fire histories from individual

properties as well as the degree of planning, use of fire andknowledge of ecologically appropriate fire regimes amonglandholders. Only the primary land manager of the property

(i.e. either owner or manager) was asked to respond to thequestionnaire. This limited responses to one per PCL andno follow-up or reminder communication was attempted toincrease response rates. This was owing to the complexity of

the initial questionnaire distribution process (which could onlybe sent through the program administrators) and the satisfactorynumber of questionnaires returned after 4 weeks.

‘Professional’ questionnaire survey

Professionals working in the fields of protected-area manage-

ment, private land conservation, and fire management andresearch were sent a similar questionnaire to that distributed toPCLs landholders to make direct comparisons betweenresponses. The questionnaire, consisting of 29 questions, sought

to understand the range and consensus of professional opinionson fire and biodiversity management, including what and howthey believe landholders should be focussing these management

efforts on PCLs. Several identical questions were asked in the‘landholder’ and ‘professional’ questionnaires for a directcomparison of responses. In some cases, professionals entered

more than one answer per question. In cases where two con-flicting check boxes were marked (i.e. agree and disagree), thequestion was treated as unanswered.

The questionnaire was initially distributed via email to87 professionals from across Queensland and New SouthWalesduring November 2009. Professionals were asked to forwardemails to colleagues for whom the questionnaire would also be

relevant following a snowball or chain referral technique(Browne 2005; Bryman 2008), resulting in an increase of thesample size to 114. This approach targeted individuals with a

specific professional profile, rather than a random group ofprofessionals with no experience in fire and private landconservation. To maximise response rates, all professionals

(original and those contacted by forwarding) were sent areminder email 2 weeks after the original questionnaire.Individual responses were collated before analysis andinterpretation.

Fire management on private conservation lands Int. J. Wildland Fire 199

Questionnaire interpretation and analysis

The results and patterns identified across responses fromboth the ‘landholders’ and ‘professionals’ were analysed pri-marily using descriptive statistics. Additional correlative anal-

yses on specific categorical variables using cross-tabulations

(Pearson x2 tests) were performed in SPSS (version 17.0,IBM, SPSS Australasia Pty Ltd, Sydney). Response statisticsrefer to the proportion of all responses to individual questions.

Unless otherwise stated, all questions had no more than tennon-responses (5.4%).

PCL – 25 years

PCL – in perpetuity

PCL – non binding

State boundaries

LGA boundaries

Public protected areas

25

990Kilometres

KilometresNew South Wales N

Scenic Rim

GoldCoast

Tweed

Kyogle

Lismore

Byron

Queensland

Fig. 1. Map of study area and location of public protected areas and private conservation lands. PCL, private conservation lands;

LGA, Local Government Area.

200 Int. J. Wildland Fire L. G. Halliday et al.

For those properties where data were provided by land-holders on fire histories and management, we compared thesepatterns with the recommended ecologically appropriate fire

intervals for various vegetation communities as provided in theliterature by Kenny et al. (2004) and Watson (2006) for NENSW, and DERM (2010) for SE QLD. Data were combined

from both states to provide an adequate sample size. We did notexpect that this would bias the analyses given that the aimwas todetermine the degree to which landholders knew of and applied

ecologically appropriate fire management on their properties.We compared the fire intervals reported for PCLs against fourfire regime classes that reflect the similar average recommendedfire return intervals of broad vegetation groups within the

region. The four fire regime classes defined were: (1) closedcanopy and perennially wet communities such as rainforestwhere fire is not appropriate; (2) wet and higher-altitude forest

communities requiring longer fire intervals in the order of25–45 years; (3) heathland and forest communities with shrubbyunderstorey and moderate fire interval requirements (every

10–25 years); and (4) grasslands and forest communities withgrassy understoreys in typically drier environments with rela-tively frequent fire intervals of the order of 1–10 years. Com-

parisons between fire intervals on PCLs and those determined byrecommendations in the literature (i.e. expected values) wereanalysed using Chi-square analyses in Statistica (version 7.1,StatSoft Pacific Pty Ltd, Melbourne). In the absence of spatially

explicit information accompanying anecdotal fire history pro-vided by landholders, we assumed that the dominant fire regimeclass on each property was the most likely vegetation group to

have been burnt in these fires.

Results

In total, 192 questionnaires were returned from the ‘landholder’questionnaire. Of these, 184 completed questionnaires were

used in further analysis, generating a 35.8% response rate acrossall agreement types. As expected, the sample population wasdominated by private landholdings (90%), while remaining land

tenures included state or local government lands protected underprivate conservation mechanisms (3%), tourism companies(2%), and association, trust or corporation entities (3%).

Thirty-two responses from the ‘professionals’ questionnaireswere received, resulting in a 28% response rate. The surveysample encompassed a wide variety of professional positions

involved with PCLs and fire, including government, privatebusiness, fire service, fire ecology research and non-governmentorganisations. Professionals were principally involved withPCLs through local and state government private conservation

initiatives, along with state and local government bushland andfire management programs on public conservation lands. Of the32 professionals surveyed, 14 currently work or have had past

experience with private land conservation in the six localgovernment areas covered in this study.

Features of private conservation lands

Returned ‘landholder’ surveys were dominated by non-bindingLand for Wildlife agreements in SE QLD (n¼ 130), but a goodrepresentation of responses from binding agreement types inboth states were also present (n¼ 45) (Table 2). Twenty-two

Table1.

Private

conservationagreem

entsincluded

inthestudyfrom

south-eastQueensland(SEQLD)andnorth-eastNew

South

Wales(N

ENSW

)

Sources:DECCW

(2009);DERM

(2009);GCCC(2009);NRCMA(2009);NCT(2009);SEQC(2009);SRRC(2009)

Region

Agreem

ent

tenure

Agreem

entnam

eLegalcomponentof

agreem

ent

Program

administrator

Relevantlegislation

Program

startyear

SEQLD

Binding

Nature

Refuge

Covenant

Stategovernment

Nature

ConservationAct1992,Nature

Conservation

(Protected

Area)Regulation1994

1994

Binding

Voluntary

Conservation

Agreem

ent

Covenant

Localgovernment

LandTitlesAct1994,SustainablePlanningAct2009

2001and2004B

Binding

Voluntary

Conservation

Agreem

ent

Contractualmanagem

ent

agreem

ent

Localgovernment

LandTitlesAct1994

2001and2004B

Non-binding

LandforWildlife

–LocalgovernmentA

–1998

NENSW

Binding

Voluntary

Conservation

Agreem

ent

Covenant

Stategovernment

NationalParksandWildlifeAct1974(Section69)

1987

Binding

NatureConservationTrust

(NCT)Agreem

ent

Covenant

Nature

ConservationTrust

(statutory

non-governmentbody)

Nature

ConservationTrustAct2001

2001

Binding

Property

VegetationPlan

25-yearorperpetual

contractualagreem

ent

Regionalcatchmentmanagem

ent

authority

Native

VegetationAct2003,Threatened

Species

ConservationAct1995

2006

Non-binding

Wildlife

Refuge

–Stategovernment

NationalParksandWildlifeAct1974

1984

ALandforWildlife

program

coordinated

regionally

byNaturalResourceManagem

entgroup(SEQCatchments),andadministeredthroughlocalgovernmentauthorities

(Gold

CoastandScenicRim

).BGold

CoastCityCouncilprogram

startyear2001;ScenicRim

RegionalCouncilprogram

startyear2004.

Fire management on private conservation lands Int. J. Wildland Fire 201

landholders (11%) responded that they were participating inmore than one of the private conservation programs encom-passed by this study. On average, a greater proportion of land-holders with binding agreements responded to the surveys that

those with non-binding agreements (Table 2).Despite the total areas under conservation being similar

across SE QLD and NE NSW (2285 and 2092 ha), properties

in NE NSW were on average larger than those in SE QLD(48 and 16 ha), owing to the large number of smaller non-binding PCLs in SE QLD. Across both states, properties with

binding conservation agreements were generally larger thanthose with non-binding conservation agreements (82 and 24 ha).The primary land-use for 82%of PCLswas identified as being ofa non-primary production or non-commercial nature, namely

lifestyle, biodiversity conservation or residential blocks. Of theremaining productive or commercial properties, most weregrazing properties. The majority of respondents were current

residents of their PCLs (84%), with 10% identified as non-residents, and a further 6% as casual or part-time residents. Themost common length of time landholders had lived on their

properties was 5–10 years; however, the amount of time variedfrom 1–5 years to more than 25 years.

Fire management on PCLs

Overall, private conservation landholders spent little time ormoney on fire management. On average, 56% of landholdersdirected 0–10% of the total time and funds they spent on allconservation management activities towards fire management

in an average year. Fourteen percent spent 10–30%, whereas 5%spent over 60% of their (overall conservation) time and moneyon fire management. Seventeen percent of landholders did not

respond to either section of this question. By comparison, 56%of professionals indicated 10–30% of effort, and 25% indicated30–60% of conservation effort should be allocated to fire

management each year, whereas only 19% considered 0–10%ofeffort appropriate.

The most frequently listed conservationmanagement actions

undertaken by nearly all landholders in the last 5 years wereweed control and facilitating natural regeneration (Fig. 2).Although fire management was ranked fifth among activitiesundertaken, it was undertaken by less than 40% of landholders.

Weed control was also the most frequently listed conservationactivity that surveyed professionals believe should be under-taken on PCLswhereas firemanagement ranked second (Fig. 2).

Landholder responses on fire responsibility and the potential

risks that fires pose to life and property were quite consistent(Fig. 3). Over 85% of respondents believed unplanned fires andfires spreading from neighbouring properties threaten lives and

built assets on their properties. Eighty-seven percent of land-holders saw fire management as their responsibility as a landmanager, and 78%believed fire needs to be activelymanaged on

their property. These responses generally concurred with thosefrom professionals (Fig. 3).

Reducing the risk that accumulated flammable fuels can poseto homes and other assets appeared to be a common component

of actual wildfire mitigation and preparation activities. Mechan-ical or manual techniques to reduce fuel hazards in these areaswere mostly done on a frequent basis across all PCLs (Fig. 4).

The use of strategic grazing as a fuelmanagement techniquewasfrequently practised by 30% of landholders. However, it was notpossible to discern from the responses whether such practices

were occurring in the conservation agreement area, or the entireproperty. Forty percent never used grazing to reduce fuels and afurther 24% indicated it was not applicable to their property.

A total of 20%of landholders frequently used fire to reduce fuelsoutside their conservation areas and away from assets, whereas16% used fire less frequently for the same purpose. Few land-holders used fire for ecological purposes (see later).

Fire management infrastructure

The most common type of fire management infrastructurelandholders had established for their PCLs consisted of fire trailsand breaks constructed around and through the conservationarea (67%). Emergency water sources, pumps and hoses were

other common types of fire infrastructure (53%). Investments invehicle firefighting units (often detachable) were less common(25%). Twenty-two percent of landholders did not respond to

this question.

Fire management planning

Irrespective of actually possessing a Fire Management Plan(FMP), 70% of landholders agreed or strongly agreed that they

Table 2. Landholder questionnaire response statistics by region and agreement type

SE QLD, south-east Queensland; NE NSW, north-east New South Wales

Population –

number sent

Survey sample (respondents)

Sample – number

returned (proportion)

Total property area (ha)A

(average area)

Area conserved (ha)A

(average area)

Binding agreements

SE QLD 22 11 (50%) 640 (58.2) 640 (58.2)

NE NSW 62 34 (55%) 3079 (90.5) 1478 (43.5)

Non-binding agreements

SE QLD 399 130 (32.5%) 2762 (21.2) 1645 (12.6)

NE NSW 30 9 (30%) 614 (68.2) 614 (68.2)

Total 513 184 (35.8%) 7095 4377

ATotal property area estimates calculated from spatial polygons, and area conserved estimates calculated from spatial datasets provided by program

administrators.

202 Int. J. Wildland Fire L. G. Halliday et al.

0

20

40

60

80

100

Unplanned firesare a threat

Fire spread fromneighbouring

property is a threat

Fire managementis a landholderresponsibility

Fire requires activemanagement

Res

pons

e –

Agr

ee (

%)

Landholder response

Professional response

Fig. 3. ‘Landholder’ and ‘professional’ responses to the perceived risk and responsibilities associated

with fire on private conservation lands.

0

10

20

30

40

50

60

70

80

90

100

Wee

d co

ntro

l

Natur

al re

gene

ratio

n

Active

reve

geta

tion

Establi

shing

wild

life co

rrido

rs

Fire m

anag

emen

t

Feral

anim

al co

ntro

l

Flora

surv

eys

Soil e

rosio

n wor

ks

Fauna

surv

eys

Fencin

g

Prope

rty m

anag

emen

t plan

ning

Insta

llatio

n of

nex

t box

es

Other

eco

logica

l mon

itorin

g

Other

acti

vities

Per

cent

age

resp

onse

Landholder actions

Professional recommendation

Fig. 2. Landholder responses to conservation actions undertaken in the last 5 years on private conservation

lands (PCLs)within south-eastQueensland (SEQLD) and north-eastNewSouthWales (NENSW), compared

with professional recommendations of the most important types of conservation actions that should be

undertaken on PCLs.

Fire management on private conservation lands Int. J. Wildland Fire 203

are effective in guiding property preparation for wildfire events.Fewer landholders (57%) believed that FMPs are effective in

guiding planned burning for conservation objectives. Impor-tantly, 19% of respondents were unsure of the effectiveness ofFMPs for these two purposes. In reality, only 28% of land-

holders had engaged in fire management planning on their PCLswhere FMPs were either included in their overall propertymanagement plan (9%), or were a separate specific document

(19%). Twenty-five percent of non-binding agreements and33% of binding agreements contained FMPs. In summary, 80landholders (43%) had neither a property management plan nor

a FMP, whereas 29 (16%) had developed both. Further inves-tigation, using a Chi-square test, found a significant relationshipbetween the development of FMPs and landholder attitude. Theextent to which landholders agreed fire needs active manage-

ment on their properties (P, 0.01, Pearson’s test statistic¼11.3) and acknowledged their responsibility of fire management(P, 0.001, Pearson’s test statistic¼ 22.4) was positively

associated with the use of a FMP. Although most landholdersdid not have a FMP, the likelihood of having a FMP was fivetimes greater if the landholder strongly agreed that fire man-

agement was their responsibility and three times more likely ifthe landholder strongly agreed that fire requires active man-agement. Despite the lack of property FMPs, 48%of landholders

had developed a ‘Bushfire Survival Plan’ for their household.The majority of professionals (88%) felt that landholders

should develop a FMP for their PCL, based on the generalagreement (83%) that such plans were effective in guiding

property preparation for both wildfire and planned burningevents. Furthermore, most professionals (65%) or their relevantorganisations either provide or facilitate the development of

FMPs for landholders involved in private conservationprograms.

Ecological fire management

Most landholders (77%) agreed that fire is a poorly understood

process in the Australian landscape (Fig. 5), a sentiment echoedby 75% of professionals. Yet 62% of landholders, and 90% of

professionals, believed that fire is an important landscape-scaleprocess (15% of landholders were unsure of the answer to this

question). Thirty-eight percent of landholders agreed with thestatement that all fires are a threat to the biodiversity on theirproperties (Fig. 5). Landholder opinion on whether fire can

improve ecosystem health and diversity on their properties wasdivided (Fig. 5). The proportion of landholders who agreed withthis was significantly lower than the professionals’ universalagreement on this issue (x2¼ 3829, P, 0.001).

Sixty-six landholders (35%) indicated that they were awareof ecologically appropriate fire regimes for the vegetation typeson their properties. However, the subsequent question, asking

these respondents to detail the recommended regimes for thevegetation types on their property, was poorly answered, withonly ,50% of these 66 landholders providing reasonably

comprehensive answers that showed an adequate level ofunderstanding of the topic. An example of a comprehensiveanswer provided reads, ‘No burning subtropical rainforest,

3–7 years open eucalypt forest, source – SE QLD fire andbiodiversity consortium’.

Only 38% of landholders were able to provide detailed firehistories for their properties, with a total of 76 individual fires

reported across all fire regime classes. It was evident from thesefigures that fires were prevalent in some vegetation communi-ties that should not be burnt, principally rainforest communities

(fire class 1). Furthermore, although some fires were withinthe recommended ranges for each fire class regime, on thewhole, fire classes 2 and 3 were burnt too frequently on private

lands whereas fire class 4 burnt too infrequently (Table 3).Interestingly, fire class 4, which should have had a higherfire frequency, (i.e. low return interval) was found to have thelowest frequency (i.e. high return interval) of fires on private

lands (Table 3).Overall, most landholders never actively used fire for eco-

logical objectives on the area of their properties designated for

conservation. Seventy-one percent of respondents consistentlyindicated that they never used prescribed burning to eitherpromote the regrowth of native species or maintain ecologically

0

20

40

60

Per

cent

age

resp

onse

80

100

Poorlyunderstood

process

Importantlandscape

disturbance

All fires threatenbiodiversity

Can improveecosystem

health or diversity

Agree Unsure Disagree

Fig. 5. Landholder response to the perceived ecological role of fire.

0

20

40

60

80

100

Frequently Often Sometimes Rarely Never

Per

cent

age

resp

onse

Fuel reduction around house

Fuel reduction away from house

Fig. 4. Relative use of mechanical or manual fuel hazard reduction

activities in different zones of private conservation properties.

204 Int. J. Wildland Fire L. G. Halliday et al.

appropriate fire regimes. Although 10% of landholders fre-quently used fire to control or reduce the regrowth of pest plant

species and 13% used fire on an infrequent basis, some 68% oflandholders never used fire for this purpose. On average, 8% oflandholders frequently used fire for all three ecological objec-

tives. Twelve percent of respondents indicated that prescribedburning for native species or ecologically appropriate fireregimes was not applicable to their properties. In contrast,

37% of landholders indicated that they had taken some formof action to protect or reduce the effect of wildfires on fire-sensitive ecosystems, although a similar proportion (38%) neverdid so. Thirty landholders (16%) did not answer this question.

Obstacles to effective fire management on PCLs

The frequency of responses to a predefined list of perceivedobstacles to effective fire management on PCLs differedbetween landholders and professionals. For landholders, phys-

ical landscape features such as steep topography or difficultaccess were the most often cited impediments (Fig. 6).Containment of planned fires and potential legal liability fortheir escape were other major challenges for landholders.

In contrast, limited knowledge, experience and training in firemanagement and knowledge of ecologically appropriate fire

regimes were considered to be the main obstacles to fire man-agement on PCLs by professionals (Fig. 6). Most professionalsalso considered that the available time and resources of the

landholder would be a significant obstacle to effective firemanagement; however, only 30% of landholders suggestedthese to be obstacles. In addition, although most professionals

believed that fire management on private properties should be acollaboration among neighbours, the landowner responsessuggest this occurs in only a few cases. More than half of allrespondents (54%) rarely or never communicate with their

neighbours about fire management, and only 28% reportedhaving some communication. Importantly, ,75% rarely ornever work on collaborative firemanagement projects with their

neighbours (such as installing fire breaks along boundary fencesor implementing planned burns).

Discussion

The overall response rate for a postal survey of this scale wasrelatively high compared with others of its kind (J. Gilroy and

Table 3. The departure of fire intervals on private conservation lands in north-east NSW and south-east Queensland from recommended intervals

Fire regime classes reflect the general fire characteristics of broad vegetation groups within the region. Fire regime classes: 1, fire not appropriate;

2, 25–45 years; 3, 10–25 years; 4, 1–10 years

Fire regime class Mean return interval

in years� s.e.

x2 value Significance Fire pattern

1 11.2� 4.9 305, d.f.¼ 8 P, 0.0001 Fires too frequent

2 8.4� 1.6 209, d.f.¼ 9 P, 0.0001 Fires too frequent

3 13.5� 1.5 417, d.f.¼ 52 P, 0.0001 Fires too frequent

4 16.8� 5.5 158, d.f.¼ 3 P, 0.0001 Fires too infrequent

0 20 40 60 80 100Percentage response

Access to trained personnel

Physical ability

Cost

Time

Resources

Limited knowledge of EAFR

Uncertainty of FM requirements

Legal liability

Limited experience and training in FM

Apprehension about fire containment

Difficult access

Steep topography

Landholder responseProfessional response

Fig. 6. Perceived obstacles to effective fire management on private conservation lands (PCLs). EAFR,

ecologically appropriate fire regimes; FM, fire management.

Fire management on private conservation lands Int. J. Wildland Fire 205

C. Tran, unpubl. data; T. Pritchard, unpubl. data), indicating afirm desire from landholders to engage with the topic. However,managing fire and ecologically appropriate fire regimes presents

a considerable challenge for PCL managers (Blake 2003; NSWRFS 2008). As Blake (2003, p. 120) comments, ‘No subjectrelated to land management in Australia generates more heat or

less light than fire’. These sentiments highlight the urgencyrequired in extracting the attitudes and perceptions of firemanagement, particularly on land managed as private conser-

vation areas. Our study has shown that despite a generalacknowledgment of the importance of fire as an ecologicalprocess, it remains poorly understood and there are still severalareas that potentially limit the implementation of fire manage-

ment practices that achieve both social and conservationobjectives on private lands.

However, several strong trends emerged from this study in

the type and frequency of fire management actions undertakenon PCLs. The inherent risks of fire, widespread agreement that itrequires active management, and acknowledgment of the asso-

ciated responsibilities of management were clearly articulatedby PCL landholders. However, there was limited effort directedtowards fire management among the majority of landholders,

and this focussed on protecting and minimising risks to life andproperty, as opposed to actions undertaken for ecologicalobjectives. This appears to be driven by the often polarisedrange of opinions on fire management that could result from

conflicting human and ecological management objectives(Driscoll et al. 2010), or from the gap between the translationof beliefs and attitudes into action (McCaffrey 2004). Land-

holder fire management actions identified from PCLs align withexisting sentiment that undertaking hazard-reduction activitieson private land in fire-prone landscapes is central to effective

fire management (Winter and Fried 2000; McCaffrey 2004;Nelson et al. 2005; NSW RFS 2010; Q RFS 2011). The level of‘Bushfire Survival’ planning instigated by PCL landholdersreflects the distinctively Australian approach to fire responsibil-

ity, riskmanagement and education on private land identified byMcCaffrey and Rhodes (2009). In contrast, although land-holders recognised that fire is an important disturbance process

that is poorly understood, they were equivocal about the poten-tial ecological benefits of fire. This demonstrates that despiteresearch highlighting the important ecological role of fire in the

Australian landscape (Gill and Williams 1996; Bergeron et al.

2002; Bradstock et al. 2003; Kenny et al. 2004; Bond andKeeley 2005; Burrows 2008), private landholders do not share a

consensus view of these potential benefits, or that many still donot have access to such information.

Landholder understanding of the ecological role of fire andthe awareness of ecologically appropriate fire regimes for the

vegetation types on their property was generally poor. Despitefire return intervals on PCLs being generally more frequent thanexpected, it was not possible to directly link this to a poor

understanding of ecologically appropriate regimes. Other driv-ing forces such as those imposed by safety considerations, aswell as unplanned natural fires, could also contribute to the fire

patterns seen on private lands regardless of the level of under-standing among landholders. Nonetheless, our results highlightthe potential risk to biodiversity conservation at a landscapescale, particularly given that these properties have been set aside

specifically with a conservation management objective in mind.Furthermore, these risks could be further compounded by thedivergent views surrounding the beneficial role that fire can

have on the health and diversity of ecosystemswithin the region.This could be caused by a combination of factors. First, severaldifferent vegetation types with varying fire requirements are

often found within individual conservation areas, highlightingthe complexity of managing fire as an ecological process.Although the protection of fire-sensitive ecosystems from fire

encroachment was an important issue for many landholders,the use of fire to maintain a mosaic of vegetation seral stagesmay be equally important, but remains unquantified on PCLs.Second, significant site-specific obstacles and a lack of knowl-

edge and experiencewith firemanagement, combinedwith legaland containment concerns, also probably contributed to the lowlevel of ecological fire management observed across PCLs.

Finally, any potential ecological benefits may have been over-shadowed by life and property concerns, which could explainthe greater effort being placed on these management actions by

private landholders.Landholders and professionals alike responded positively

towards the benefits of property-based fire planning in guiding

management. Correspondingly, this study found a positiverelationship between landholder attitudes towards fire responsi-bility, the need for active fire management and fire managementplanning, which could be an indicator of the benefits of fire

management education and awareness. Nevertheless, this studystill demonstrated that the overall number of landholders whohad engaged with property fire management planning exercises

was low, suggesting no further improvement in the rate ofuptake by landholders since a previous study (J. Gilroy andC. Tran, unpubl. data). The implementation of property FMPs

should be a minimum requirement for guiding individual PCLfire management. These plans should be developed collabora-tively, drawing on the skills of the landholder and stewardshipprogram administrators as well as rural fire service profes-

sionals. Such plans can then be used to prioritise, measure andmonitor conservation outcomes on these lands in response to firebut can also provide an effective framework through which

incentive or grant funding could be allocated and evaluated.Improvements in fire risk management and land-use planningare required (Buxton et al. 2011) and a collaborative regional

planning approach would also be more proactive in identifyingareas at greater risk to human life and property, as well asbiodiversity.

We also considered whether specific obstacles may belimiting the development of either specific fire managementplans or fire management components in more general propertymanagement plans. Themost common obstacles to effective fire

management raised by PCL landholders (see Fig. 6) in this studyrevealed a high level of congruency with those previouslyidentified by the NSW Rural Fire Service (NSW RFS 2008).

In general, limited knowledge, resources and capability werethree major barriers to fire management, though more specifi-cally, these included: lack of suitable fire records, equipment,

understanding, experience and on-ground support for planningburning, as well as legislative and regulatory complexities,inaccessible terrain, and fragmented land-use and ownership(NSWRFS 2008). Although very few landholders in the present

206 Int. J. Wildland Fire L. G. Halliday et al.

study cited access to trained fire personnel or the small size oftheir property as a major obstacle to fire management, profes-sionals in the present study and previously have ranked these

highly (NSW RFS 2008). Furthermore, both landholders andprofessionals reported that a lack of biodiversity-specific fireeducation and training was another major obstacle for imple-

menting ecological firemanagement on PCLs. The complexitiessurrounding the achievement of multiple objectives are exem-plified by one landholder stating that truly effective fire man-

agement would be a full-time job and beyond the capacity of anyindividual landholder. Interestingly, although the lack of timeand the lack of resources were considered to be the majorimpediments for ecological monitoring and management on

conservation covenants inAustralia (Fitzsimons andCarr 2007),less than 30% of landowners in the present study considered thisto be a limitation to fire management. This is perhaps a

reflection of the perceived amount of time required for ongoingecological monitoring and management (e.g. weed manage-ment) as opposed to the potentially periodic fire management

obligations. The high ranking of weed management activitiesamong PCL landholders supports this argument. Further inves-tigation is required to determine how landholders prioritise

different conservation management actions, in regard to theirrelative ‘ease’ of management, time and monetary investment,perceived conservation outcome, and obligations as imposed bythe conservation agreements.

The different levels of management intent and legal obliga-tions described under each type of conservation agreement mayalso influence the kind of management actions undertaken

within PCLs. This study gathered information from landholdersparticipating in a range of binding and non-binding conservationagreements. For binding conservation covenants (i.e. Nature

Refuges and Nature Conservation Trust agreements), theagreement implies a high level of security and managementobligation. Binding-agreement PCLs had a higher questionnairereturn rate than non-binding agreements, which may reflect this

management intent but this study did not specifically considerthe separation of responses between binding and non-bindingagreements. Furthermore, the effectiveness of certain fire man-

agement actions or practices in meeting conservation objectivesalso cannot be verified without further ground truthing (includ-ing the placement, functioning and construction of fire infra-

structure, and the ecological outcomes of planned burning).Additional factors affecting fire management or conditions onPCLs require further consideration and include surrounding

land uses, property location, surrounding fire and fuel manage-ment practices, ecosystem condition, and past and present fireregimes to list but a few.

Conclusion

Management of fire on PCLs remains a challenging and multi-faceted operation. There is a need to integrate both social and

conservation objectives and this is influenced by a variety offactors, as we have outlined in this study.We show that althoughlandholders are generally aware of the need for fire within the

landscape, there is little understanding of the actual require-ments to achieve ecological outcomes. Despite the necessity tomanage for wildfire survival within the fire-prone Australianlandscape, we have demonstrated that the use of fire as a

conservation tool among PCL landholders is limited. Althoughwe have identified a suite of obstacles that may be limiting theimplementation of ecological firemanagement actions on PCLs,

there does not appear to have been much advancement in thetransfer or uptake of knowledge to improve fire management onprivate lands. Furthermore, most landholders appear to be

operating in isolation when dealing with fire management issueson their conservation properties. The delivery of future incen-tives targeted at collaborative fire planning and implementation

projects between PCLs and neighbouring properties couldpotentially be an effective method of improving conservationoutcomes at a larger scale. However, the ability of landholders toundertake ecologically appropriate burns was recognised as a

major impediment in this study. Therefore, we recommend amore directed approach by program administrators to coordinateecologically appropriate burns being undertaken by fire man-

agement professionals (e.g. rural fire service) on PCLs in col-laboration with landholders. This collaborative approach to firemanagement on private conservation lands is anticipated to

deliver greater benefits to both the landholder and the bio-diversity across the landscape.

Acknowledgements

We thank the seven local, state and regional private conservation program

administrators who facilitated distribution of the landholder questionnaire.

We also sincerely appreciate the contributions from all private conservation

landholders who participated in this research. We thank them for their col-

lective interest and input to the topic and their personal on-going conser-

vation efforts. Comments by two anonymous referees improved this

manuscript. This research was conducted with ethical clearance from

Griffith University and received funding support from the Griffith School

of Environment and the Environmental Futures Centre.

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