Emmanuel Ugwu

Candidature

PhD Candidate

Thesis Title

Prioritisation of sites through shared social, cultural, and conservation values

Research Project

Land clearing is the foremost, proximate driver of terrestrial habitat and biodiversity loss globally. The Cumberland Plain (Western Sydney) landscape is the ground zero of land clearing in Australia, a severely fragmented scene evidencing the interplay of land use changes, biodiversity imperilment, and cultural effacement. The area is projected to be home to 3.6 million people by 2041. Population growth and urban sprawl will exacerbate mounting pressure on land systems and biodiversity, complicating human-nature intimacies.

Connectivity is a conservation tool used to link isolated patches across land tenures and land-use types. The Cumberland Plain requires connectivity to manage the trade-off between economic growth and biodiversity in favour of nature-and people-positive futures. Private landholders are key to achieving landscape connectivity as most remnant vegetation as well as the preponderance of threats of land-use conversion to development occur on privately owned or managed lands.

However, connectivity is seldom incorporated into conservation mechanisms on private land. Also, conservation mechanisms tend to foreground biophysical outcomes while relegating social and cultural values. This narrow pursuit of ecological values can perpetuate or create environmental injustice. There is a groundswell of advocacy for the promotion of the public stake in ecological governance toward enhancing equity and diffusing nature stewardship norms. Nevertheless, little is known about the scope for the commoning of nature in privately protected areas in a densifying and urbanising developed world context with a strong property rights regime.

Hence, the overarching objective of this project is to explore pathways to improve landscape connectivity and foster people’s connection to and care for nature in the Cumberland Plain. Synthesizing the Socio-ecological Systems Framework and the Nature Futures Framework, this study will employ spatial analysis of land conservation data, surveys, and interviews to address the following core questions: (1) How is landscape connectivity reflected in the conservation policy mix of the New South Wales Government? (2) What are the spatial configurations of sites resulting from the voluntary uptake of private land conservation programs? (3) How can social and cultural values be mainstreamed in private land conservation? (4) How can incentive structures be modelled to account for the connectivity characteristics of land parcels in an automatic and systematic way in the biodiversity market?

The thesis contributes to our understanding of the efficiency of voluntary conservation programs in improving on-ground connectivity and opportunities for access to nature. It aims to improve incentives for multi-stakeholder governance of private conservation assets. This work also seeks to optimize the co-benefits of private land conservation programs by developing guidelines for integrating social, cultural, and ecological values in conservation, restoration, and Caring for Country.

Supervisors

Professor Neil Perry (principal supervisor), A/Professor Paul Rymer (co-supervisor), Professor Juan Francisco Salazar Sutil (co-supervisor), and Dr. Steph Hernandez (co-supervisor)