Evaluating the Governance Potential of Voluntary Stewardship Programs for Farmers

Neither traditional public law, nor non-governmental, self-regulatory approaches seem able to protect the ecological, social and productive capacity of Australian rural lands. This has spurred interest in collaborative approaches to stewardship, with the hope they combine the best of the public and private spheres. Collaborative agri-environmental governance experiments underway in rural Australia include a co-regulation model involving non-government voluntary stewardship programs (VSPs) for farmers. There is insufficient empirical evidence of how such arrangements work in practice. This article outlines a preliminary investigation of the potential for VSPs in governance partnerships. It examined the design of an operational VSP, Certified Land Management, canvassing participating and non-participating farmers on their views of it. The evidence suggests that participation in VSPs can make important contributions to environmental governance, which could be enhanced in partnerships with other government and non-government actors.