Listening to landholders: Approaches to Community Nature Conservation

The Queensland Parks and Wildlife Service (QPWS) established the Community Nature Conservation (CNC) Extension Network in 1998 to assist landholders, community groups and local governments with nature conservation planning and management on private and leasehold land in Queensland. The network now includes 17 regional extension officers, six Bushcare facilitators, seven Land for Wildlife coordinators and seven NatureSearch coordinators. CNC staff work across 12 bioregions with diverse ecosystems and varying levels of landholder commitment and capacity to manage and protect areas of habitat. Nature conservation on private and leasehold land in Queensland (more than 90 % of the state) has become critical for the survival of many plant and animal species, and their associated ecosystems. The conservation status of Queensland’s bioregional ecosystems currently shows that 32 % of the total number of regional ecosystems are either ‘endangered ’ or ‘of concern’. The new Vegetation Management Act 1999 protects ‘endangered ’ ecosystems and those vulnerable to land degradation, and seeks to voluntarily protect ‘of concern ’ ecosystems through a regional vegetation planning process. Only by working with landholders to encourage and enable them t