Landholders attitude to 1080

The response to Rural Development Services mail-out survey into land-holder attitudes to the use of 1080 has been very strong, with over 320 respondents from the pool of 1,160 surveys.

Dr Carla Mooney, from RDS, gave a preliminary analysis of the mail-out survey to the Stakeholder Advisory Group on November the 19^th.

It was noted that some caution needs to be used in interpreting the results, remembering that this survey was only sent to farmers, and non-industrial forest growers, who have been issued a 1080 poison permit in the last 10 years. This group would have had to have suffered high browsing pressure to get such a permit. It is therefore probable that there will be a response bias towards landholders with a strong interest in either native browsing animals or the use of 1080 poison.

Some of the key responses included:

97% of respondents thought that native animal browsing damage affected total farm income through productivity loss, with losses ranging from 2% to 99%.
74% thought that in the overall scheme of their property, managing native animal browsing damage was "very important".
45% of respondents thought that their last 1080 poison operation was effective for one season, 18% for one year, 24% for 2 years and 13% for 3 or more years;
55% said they wanted to, or had attempted to use 1080 again. 43% of respondents said the main reason they haven't used 1080 again was because it was too hard to get.
96% of respondents used shooting to control browsing damage, with 67% rating it as a somewhat satisfactory control, and 1% rating it as a completely satisfactory control.
54% of respondents had constructed special animal proof fencing, usually on boundary lines alongside forested or plantation areas. Most respondents thought it gave satisfactory control, with 6% saying it gave completely satisfactory control.

The most common reasons given for not constructing a fence were construction costs, followed by inappropriate terrain and maintenance costs.

This mail out survey has been followed up with ninety face-to-face interviews to get a more detailed understanding of the responses received from the survey.

It is planned that the final outcomes from this project will be presented as part of a two-day workshop of key stakeholders, technical experts, and deed recipients to be held on the 7-8 of April 2008.

Article curtesy of the Tasmanian Community Forest Agreement Research Alternatives to 1080 Newsletter 13
December 2007.