• One pathway is to target landholders that are already engaged and those most likely to adopt . Some landholders have adopted BMPs ( and been recognised for this ) but may be able to do more , and many more are “ BMP ready ”. It is likely that at least some of these landholders manage areas that are sediment hot spots .
• There have to be efforts to increase other landholders ’ readiness to adopt BMPs though ongoing education , information , suasion , extension and research . Critically , this approach has to intersect with each landholder ’ s personal knowledge and experience , as this provides the primary reference point for decision making .
• Innovative approaches , such as the high density animal trial for gully remediation , could be supported and replicated for validation purposes .
• The creation and ongoing operation of local landholder peer groups could be supported .
• In terms of communicating water quality , there needs to be a focus on the opportunity that every landholder has to contribute to water quality improvement rather than problem definition .
In a broader context , the efforts of the Burdekin and Wet Tropics MIPs may require regulatory support to compel compliance of landholders with their statutory environmental duty of care . Eligibility for some incentives already requires BMP compliance . Care is to be applied in their design of regulatory and cross-compliance instruments to avoid unintended consequences , e . g . the crowding out of social compliance based on intrinsic motivation to comply ( Greiner et al . 2016 ).
Other measures , including land buy-back for restoration or land banking , are also larger scale concepts that could add value to the MIPs .
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