Seeking Survey Participants! The Rural Stewardship Funding Project, UNE needs your help! 

Tight Deadline for completion: Sunday, 28 February 2021.

The protection or restoration of rural environments relies on sourcing adequate funding. Please participate in their survey to help secure better funding for this important work. 

Rural Stewardship Funding Project at UNE

Dear Landcarers

Landcare NSW, the Great Eastern Ranges Initiative, Gondwana Links, and The Nature Conservancy have partnered with the Australian Centre for Agriculture & Law at the University of New England, to investigate better models for funding the protection or restoration of rural environments. As funding is a constant challenge for rural environmental work, this is an important issue for our organisation.

Professor Paul Martin and Dr Andrew Lawson lead the team from the Australian Centre for Agriculture & Law. Part of the project is to get reliable frontline intelligence from community-based groups, and from landholders who are involved conservation or restoration work. Professor Martin and Dr Lawson are using 2 surveys to obtain this important information.

It would help a lot if you could let the community groups that you work with, and individual landholders involved in environmental protection or restoration works, about these surveys; and request that they participate.

The surveys are completely voluntary and responses to the survey questions will be confidential.

• For community groups to access the survey, click this link Stewardship resourcing - citizen groups survey (or use this URL: https://unesurveys.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_a4QruJSgmh4lYkR)
  
  
• For individual landholders to access the survey, click this link Stewardship funding - individuals survey (or use this URL: https://unesurveys.au1.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_3VH7CEUYxw8ayB7)

People who agree to participate can complete the whole survey online, or (if they prefer) by phone, Skype or Zoom. The deadline for completion is Sunday, 28 February 2021.

You can start the survey and come back later to complete it, as long as you use the same computer and internet browser, complete within a week of starting, and don’t press the very last forward arrow on the last page (after the question asking you to indicate whether you would like to be kept informed). Press this last arrow when you are ready to finally submit the survey.

This project has been approved by the Human Research Ethics Committee of the University of New England (Approvals No HE20-176, Valid to 30/11/2021, and No. HE20-175, Valid to 9/12/2021).

For more information, please email Professor Paul Martin at Pmartin9@une.edu.au, or telephone him on 0416 015 161; email Dr Andrew Lawson at andrew.lawson@une.edu.au or telephone him on (02) 6773 3551.

Yours sincerely,

Landcare NSW, the Great Eastern Ranges Initiative, Gondwana Links, The Nature Conservancy, and the Australian Centre for Agriculture & Law at the University of New England