FARMER PERCEPTIONS OF WETLANDS AND WETLAND MANAGEMENT IN THE UPPER SOUTH EAST OF SOUTH AUSTRALIA

In recent times much attention has been paid to wetland conservation and management. Relatively little of this attention has been paid to the trade-offs land manager’s face when deciding on the use of privately owned wetlands. In this paper the results of a survey of wetland management trade-offs in the Upper South East region of South Australia are reported. Wetland benefits are reflected by farmer attitudes and wetland management behaviour. The results indicate that farmers obtain considerable non-monetary benefits from their wetlands. These non-monetary benefits from wetlands are traded-off against monetary opportunity costs (mainly from restrictions to grazing livestock) and additional management costs. Management constraints faced by land managers are analysed and some potential incentive structures suggested