Resistance to the use of prescribed fire is strong among many private land managers despite the advantages it offers for maintaining fire‐adapted ecosystems. Even managers who are aware of the benefits of using prescribed fire as a management tool avoid using it, citing potential liability as a major reason for their aversion. Recognizing the importance of prescribed fire for ecosystem management and the constraints current statutory schemes impose on its use, several states in the United States have undertaken prescribed burn statutory reform.

The Gunnison sage-grouse (GUSG) is an iconic species recently proposed for protection under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). In Colorado's Upper Gunnison River Basin, ranchers own the majority of water rights and productive river bottoms as well as approximately 30% of the most important GUSG habitat. This project used mixed-methods interviews with 41 ranch owners to document how ranchers perceive the proposed ESA listing and how they plan to respond to a listing decision. Results show that ranchers support on-the-ground GUSG conservation but are concerned about listing implications.

Human land use contributes significantly to the growth of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. Changes in land management practices have been proposed as a critical and cost-effective mechanism for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and promoting the storage of additional carbon in vegetation and soils. However many discussions of the potential for land use to mitigate climate change only take into account biophysical factors such as vegetation and land cover and neglect how the agency of land owners themselves affects whether additional carbon storage can be achieved.

This paper describes the development and implementation of a method to measure the transaction costs in situations of multiple land-use, where the actions of one actor have negative effects on the other and vice versa (i.e., where the two actors’ usage patterns are interdependent). In situations where more than one agent is using a limited resource, transaction costs arise, which may affect the governance of that resource. For example, in northern Sweden the forestry and reindeer husbandry sectors incur transaction costs during consultations over land-use management.

Despite widespread adoption of conservation practices by farmers in the Cannonsville watershed, part of the New York City water supply system, there is considerable resistance to riparian buffer practices of the Conservation Reserve Enhancement Program (CREP). Traditional approaches to promoting CREP adoption, based on the adoption-diffusion model, were not effective in promoting CREP. We surveyed farmers in the Cannonsville watershed to evaluate factors affecting CREP adoption.

The nation's family forest lands can be an important contributor to carbon sequestration efforts. Yet very little is known about how family forest landowners view programs that enable them to sell carbon credits generated from the growth of their forest and the compensation that would be required to encourage a meaningful level of participation. To address this information gap, we conducted a study to identify and quantify family forest landowner interest in participating in a voluntary carbon market trading program in the Lake States, USA.

The Adja plateau (Benin) is densely populated by tenant and landowner farmers engaged in oil palm based cropping. Landowners use oil palm sap for the production of sodabi (a local spirit), and an oil palm fallow (if no crops are grown beneath the palms) to restore soil fertility. In this area, growing oil palm for its oil is uncommon. Tenants access the land under specific contracts but are not allowed to plant oil palm.

Recent emphasis on producing energy from woody biomass has raised questions about the impact of a wood-energy market on the U.S. South’s wood supply chain. We surveyed wood-energy facilities, fibermills, sawmills, private landowners, and government landholders to investigate the expected impact of a vibrant wood-energy market on the southern wood supply chain. Specifically, our study was designed to document potential competition for resources, wood supply chain profitability, and landowner willingness to sell timber to energy facilities.

Sweden is undergoing an extensive transformation from single species management towards ecosystem-based management. This study analyses the implementation of the new moose management system, focusing on the newly formed partnerships at ecosystem level (the moose management areas) and their potential to ease conflicts between participants and develop into sustainable collaborations that enable ecosystem-based management.

This research uses an econometric model to analyze the factors affecting non-industrial private forest landowners’ choice of intermediate forest management practices, and to examine how these choices might change in response to incentives for carbon sequestration. We also use parameter estimates to simulate the carbon sequestration potential for different combinations of management practices, and compare the effectiveness and costs of carbon sequestration-based and practice-based incentive payment schemes.