Landowners' perceptions on coordinated wildlife and groundwater management in the Edwards Plateau

摘要

Since Texas contains less than 5% public land, private landowners are critical tothe success of environmental management initiatives in the state. This has implicationsfor resources that traverse property boundaries, such as wildlife and groundwater. Texaslandowners are increasingly capitalizing on the income potential of fee-based hunting,and many have banded together to form Wildlife Management Associations (WMAs).Not only can such landowner associations enhance the coordination of resourcemanagement decisions, they also have the potential to increase social capital, which isreflected by interpersonal trust, reciprocity and civic participation. To improve themanagement of common-pool resources it is important to understand the relationshipbetween social capital and coordinated resource management because long-termcommunity stability and resource sustainability appear to be highly correlated.A 600-landowner mail survey (with 48.1% response) was conducted in theEdwards Plateau region of Texas to compare the land management characteristics andsocial capital of landowners who are members of WMAs with non-member landowners.The goal of this research was to determine how WMA membership, property size, andlocation affect levels of social capital and interest in cooperative resource management. It was hypothesized that members, large landowners, and northern landowners would bemore interested in cooperative management and exhibit higher social capital.While WMA members and large-property owners were more involved in wildlifemanagement than non-members and small-property owners, this interest in resourcemanagement did not carry over to groundwater. These groups were not more involvedin groundwater management activities, and all survey groups were disinterested injoining private cooperatives for groundwater marketing.Social capital differences were more evident between large- and small-propertyowners than between WMA members and non-members. Members scored higher onlyon community involvement, while large owners scored higher on communityinvolvement as well as trust. These results suggest that WMA membership per se doesnot significantly increase social capital among Edwards Plateau landowners, but do notnecessarily refute the importance of social capital within WMAs. Differences in trustbetween members were positively correlated with increased communication and meetingfrequency, suggesting ways WMAs can improve intra-association social capital.