A review of the Sustainable Landscape Program in Mackay

A number of reviews have identified issues of poor water quality as having some potential impact on the Great Barrier Reef lagoon, with agriculture identified as one of the contributing industries. To address this, a number of government strategies and programs have been developed to encourage improvements in farming and other management practices. One recent program that has been implemented was the Sustainable Landscapes Program (SLP) at Mackay, where incentive funds were used to encourage voluntary changes in a range of activities. Between August 2005 and May 2006, almost 300 agreements have been signed with about 200 land managers for approximately $1.72 million in funding agreements. The focus of the research reported here was to review the effectiveness of the SLP. One key purpose of the research was to identify how the SLP was consistent with new advances in incentive design, where market-like approaches are increasingly being used to focus more on the incentives facing land managers and to identify the linkages between funding provided and the environmental outputs generated. Another key focus was to identify how the SLP might address issues of involvement and take-up, where a key challenge of any program is to generate enough interest and participation among landholders.