Journal article
What is private land stewardship? Lessons from agricultural opinion leaders in North Carolina
SL Rodriguez, MN Peterson, FW Cubbage, EO Sills, HD Bondell
Sustainability Switzerland | MDPI | Published : 2018
DOI: 10.3390/su10020297
Abstract
The development of private land is a significant conservation concern globally. To conserve the ecosystem services associated with private lands, conservationists must understand landowner conceptions of stewardship and its role in decisions about land and natural resources. We began addressing this need with a survey of North Carolina Farm Bureau county advisory board members in North Carolina (n = 735). Nearly all respondents self-identified as stewards of the land (97%). More respondents indicated their stewardship responsibility was owed to future generations (87%) and family (77%), rather than to the community (41%) or society (26%). Respondents associated stewardship more with using na..
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Funding Acknowledgements
Funding and support for our research were provided by the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Texas A&M University, The Dean's Office of the College of Natural Resources at North Carolina State University, and the North Carolina Farm Bureau. We thank William (Billy) Bridges (Clemson University) and Xiaodong Chen (University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill) for their statistics assistance. We would also like to thank Tim Jones and Susan Woodall of the USDA Farm Service Agency, and Don Riley of the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, for providing information about Farm Bill programs in North Carolina. Lastly, we thank the North Carolina Farm Bureau staff, especially Chester Lowder, for their invaluable assistance with implementing our survey and North Carolina Farm Bureau county advisory board members for the generosity of their time in participating in our study.