Conservation Covenants: Are they working and what have we learned?

Australia's current Biodiversity Strategy aims to increase by 25% the number of Australians and public and private organisations participating in biodiversity conservation activities by 2015 and to increase by 600,000 km2 the amount of native habitat managed primarily for conservation purposes. One method of helping to realise these goals is to secure voluntary conservation covenants over privately tenured land. Throughout Australia, various statutes provide for conservation covenants - that is, voluntary agreements between private landholders and a government or other authorised body for the conservation of land. This article reviews current field work reporting on how well existing conservation covenant programs are working both in law and in practice. It then speculates on what bearing these 'lessons already learned' may have on recent initiatives aimed at expanding the use of conservation covenants.Arts, Education & Law Group, School of LawNo Full Tex