Opportunities for adaptive online collaboration to enhance rural land management

Abstract

Cross-property cooperation has the potential to enhance the effectiveness of environmental management actions that cut across property boundaries. Online tools can facilitate this and overcome barriers to landholder engagement in collaborative management. However, collaborative online tools need to be designed and tailored to users' needs and values, and landholder participation in the development process is critical to ensuring uptake and long-term use. This article presents a case study from the Central Tablelands region of New South Wales, Australia, where landholders have been involved in participatory development of a new online collaboration tool. The case study results highlight the significance of issues such as internet access, privacy, technical proficiency and differing stakeholder objectives. A landholder survey identified mapping and the uploading of monitoring data as important functions for the online tool, but these were not rated as highly as functions relating to data security, sharing settings and key term searches. Consequently, we recommend that a future online collaboration tool for the region is not framed specifically as a mapping or citizen science tool, but rather as an adaptive collaboration and communication tool that can incorporate a variety of data types and formats and be modified over time in line with changing landholder needs.

Understanding patterns of information sourcing and motivations to collaborate among absentee landholders: A case study of the Central Tablelands, NSW

“…These can increase the risk of improper adoption of NRM strategies and translate into higher levels of environmental degradation (Morrison et al, 2015); which often extend beyond individual property boundaries and impact at the landscape and regional scale (Meadows et al, 2013). Furthermore, interactions between NRM agencies and absentee landholders can also have implications for surrounding landholders, including opportunities for cross-property collaboration and landscape-scale conservation (Baumber et al, 2018a). As ecological boundaries rarely abide by human-imposed boundaries (Meadows et al, 2013) and global environmental targets cannot be met with publicly-governed protected areas alone (Bond et al, 2018), private landholders have an important role to play in the conservation of biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services (Rickenbach et al, 2011).…”

The impact of adopting e-collaboration tools on knowledge management processes

“…They also allow synchronised use between all parties involved linking existing interests and practices. Furthermore, ECTs play a role that does not require strong social commitments, such as existing relationships with close friends, family or neighbours (Baumber et al, 2018). Culturally, ECTs can be used as short-term communication systems among different points, enabling communities to be permanently connected and exchange cultures.…”