Nick Emtage, Carl Smith and John Herbohn
School of Integrative Systems, The University of
Queensland
With complementary report (Part B) by Dr Bob
Maczkowiack, The University of Queensland, 'Development of Bayesian
Belief Network models linking the characteristics and circumstances
of North Queensland landholders to their adoption of recommended
land management practices'
ISBN 9781921359484
Published March 2010
MTSRF Project 4.9.4 - Integrating
ecology, economics and people in forest and landscapes
Abstract
This report presents the results from a series of analyses that
examined the adoption of a number of currently recommended
practices (CRPs) to improve natural resource management (NRM) in
the Wet Tropics region of far northern Queensland. The practices
examined include a number that could be adopted by any rural
landholder, those that could be applied by crop growers, and those
that could be applied by graziers. Practices examined that could be
applied by any landholder include the preparation of property or
business plans, the encouragement of regrowth of native vegetation,
attending short courses related to land management and
participation in Government NRM programs. Practices examined that
relate particularly to graziers include the fencing of native
vegetation areas, fencing of waterways and the use of soil testing
prior to fertiliser application. Practices examined that relate
particularly to crop growers include the use of soil testing,
minimum tillage, stubble retention, the use of legume rotations and
the use of earthworks to control soil movement.
In general, compared to those that have not adopted CRPs relating
to agriculture (e.g. soil testing and the adoption of minimum
tillage), those that have adopted industry CRPs:
- Are more motivated to build their business;
- Support a greater number of people with income from the
property;
- Operate larger scaled enterprises;
- Are more reliant on their property enterprises for income;
- Tend to live in the 'lowland' (coastal plain) areas of the
region;
- Are more interested in information generally, particularly from
'enterprise' groups;
- Have undertaken short courses on land management and have
prepared a property or business plan;
- Participate in more social groups (particularly 'industry'
groups);
- Have higher levels of trust for 'productivity' groups; and
- Are more concerned about the future viability of
agriculture.
The pattern of differences between landholders and their
landholdings in regard to the adoption of the CRPs that relate to
vegetation management differs to those related to agricultural
industries, where the greatest adoption tends to be by those
landholders with smaller landholding areas who are less reliant on
agriculture for their income. In relation to the adoption of CRPs
within the cropping industry there is some evidence of differences
in the rates of adoption between differing parts of the region,
particularly between the 'upland' and 'lowland' areas. While these
general patterns of characteristics of those who have adopted
recommended practices are evident, it is also apparent that there
are a number of differences in the characteristics of landholders'
attitudes, their landholdings and their behaviour that are unique
to each CRP. A series of Bayesian Belief Networks were constructed
and assessed for a subset of the CRPs that were examined for this
report. The construction, testing and manipulation of these
networks revealed that there is strong potential to use this
technique to identify and illustrate the many inter-relationships
between factors affecting the adoption of recommended
practices.
The analysis of the spatial relationships commenced with the
assessment of variations in attitudes, characteristics of the
landholdings and practices that differed between landholders and
their holdings according to their proximity to the Wet Tropics
World Heritage Area (WTWHA). Landholders' properties were
classified into a number of classes according to the minimum
distance they are to the boundary of the WTWHA. Of all the analyses
undertaken, the only significant result was that landholders whose
properties are within one hundred metres of the boundary of the
WTWHA are more concerned about the impacts of 'pests and weeds'
than those whose properties are more than two kilometres from the
boundary. A variety of additional research questions that could be
addressed and datasets that could be used are described in this
report.
