Private lands for biodiversity conservation: Review of conservation covenanting programs in Tasmania, Australia

Conservation covenanting has become an important policy tool in promoting biodiversity conservation on private lands. Existing studies to date have focused either on the economic performance of specific programs or the ecological performances of conservation programs. There is a lack of comprehensive economic analysis of private land covenant policies at a wider regional level using long-term data, particularly in Australia. In this paper, we analyse a range of institutional and ecological factors affecting three main attributes (size, financial incentive and conservation value scores) of covenants in Tasmania, Australia. Institutional factors include project selection and tender-based mechanisms. While the project selection mechanism (tender vs. negotiation) does not influence the average size of the covenant, the choice of tender-based selection mechanism increases the incentive payment of securing covenants significantly. Covenants with an active management requirement may require a higher rate of incentive payment. It is also found that landholders were more likely to enroll areas with higher ecological values for higher incentive payment. These results have significant implications for the design of future programs not just in Australia but throughout the world.