Conservation auctions are a type of market-based instrument (MBI) that can achieve a more cost-efficient allocation of public funds than approaches such as devolved grants. In this paper, the conduct of a multiple round conservation auction to improve biodiversity management in a rangelands area is outlined. The auction was designed to develop a wildlife corridor across the southern Desert Uplands bioregion in Queensland and to improve management of rangelands areas. The conservation auction incorporated two important new design features.

The biobaler is a novel approach to cut woody crops up to 150-mm basal diameter and compress the biomass into round bales. It can be used to harvest short-rotation woody crop plantations such as willow or hybrid poplar. It can also be used to clear wild brush, forest understory, and encroaching small trees to improve land management.

Ash is generated in every wildfire, but its eco-hydro-geomorphic effects remain poorly understood and quantified, especially at large spatial scales. Here we present a new method that allows modelling the spatial distribution of ash loads in the post-fire landscape, based on a severe wildfire that burnt ~13600ha of a forested water supply catchment in October 2013 (2013 Hall Road Fire, 100km south-west of Sydney, Australia). Employing an existing spectral ratio-based index, we developed a new spectral index using Landsat 8 satellite imagery: the normalised wildfire ash index (NWAI).

Variability of soil fertility within, and across farms, poses a major challenge for increasing crop productivity in smallholder systems of sub-Saharan Africa. This study assessed the effect of farmers' resource endowment and nutrient management strategies on variability in soil fertility and plant nutrient uptake between different fields in Gokwe South (ave. rainfall ~650 mm year⁻¹; 16.3 persons km⁻²) and Murewa (ave. rainfall ~850 mm year⁻¹; 44.1 persons km⁻²) districts, Zimbabwe.

In many important agricultural regions, soil inorganic carbon (SIC) stocks can rival the amount of carbon found in organic form. Land management practices, including irrigation, fertilization and liming, have the potential to greatly alter the soil inorganic carbon cycle thus creating an important feedback to atmospheric CO₂ concentrations. However, the current literature is less clear regarding the direction and magnitude of this feedback.

In this paper, we examine the extent to which three conservation organisations (one local, one national and one international), working in East Texas, variously integrate local cultural models of conservation and scientific theories into their programmes. We hypothesised that the local level organisation, whose members were primarily from East Texas, would construct conservation programmes that speak to local cultural models of land and conservation, and the non-local organisations, with mandates crafted outside of the region, would actively promote conservation science.

Poor millet growth and yields in Niger are commonly attributed to rainfall deficits and low soil nutrient content. Land management by local farmers is done as a function of soil types, crops, and available resources. Farmer management practices in millet fields located on four different landscape positions were studied in a village in western Niger located near the 600 mm isohyet. Average distance from homestead to field was 980 m, with fields in the valley bottom much closer (average 225 m) and fields on the plateau much further (average 2300 m).

It is increasingly recognized that ecosystems provide varied services that should be considered in land management decisions. One of the challenges in the valuation of landscapes is that they often provide multiple services that combine into one social–ecological system. In this article we show how overlaps of those services can be measured, visualized, and explained. The results from a case study conducted in a rural community in northern Namibia show that in some landscapes, services are intertwined.

To document trends in land use and herbaceous production, 71 field sites sampled among cropped fields, fallow fields and rangelands in the Fakara region (Niger) were monitored from 1994 to 2006. The overall trend in land use confirmed the historical increase of the cropped areas since mid 20th century, at an annual rate of 2% from 1994 to 2006. This trend is the result of changes in the relative extent of fields permanently cropped and fields under shifting cultivation, and for the latter, the relative proportion of short (3 years) and long (10 years) duration fallows.

There is increasing evidence that forests and forest soil contribute to the signature of chlorine composition in water bodies. However, little is known about the potential effects of land management activities on chlorine biogeochemistry. This study examines the effects of previous nitrogen addition on chlorine chemistry in a Pinus sylvestris L. forest located in south-central Sweden (60°00′N, 13°43′E). Repeated addition of nitrogen to study plots over a 20-year period resulted in total additions of 0, 450 and 900� kg� N� ha⁻¹.