Rewilding people managing land:Society-nature interaction in biodiversity conservation on agricultural land

Temperate woodland conservation in southeastern Australia typically involves forms of exclusion, such as of fire, livestock grazing, forestry, and other productive land uses. However, these systems change approaches may underestimate path dependencies established by millennia of human co-evolution with myriad unique landscapes. Critique has emerged from the social sciences implicating the alienation of people from place in persistent declines in social-ecological wellbeing. Moreover, agricultural landholders understandably resist forms of exclusion that limit the productive capacity of their land, often understood as productivity losses due to opportunity costs. How might temperate woodland conservation adapt to these challenges? I applied a social-ecological systems framework and a knowledge coproduction methodology to implement a scoping study of woodland conservation on agricultural land between the Murrumbidgee and Murray River in southeast Australia. I deductively coded qualitative data generated from key informant interviews, field observation, document review, and deliberation with research partners. I analysed these data using reflexive thematic analysis and qualitative systems mapping methods to make sense of and visualise a pluralistic landscape of problem framings, actors, and goals. I then mapped and elaborated research narratives and facilitated focus groups to review, reflect upon, and renew an emergent research design. This approach generated key stakeholder support for research programs that investigate the introduction of large herbivores and predators to enhance biodiversity conservation outcomes. However, these findings may problematise approaches that limit land management to biodiversity conservation, with important implications for rewilding approaches. This scoping study indicates that rewilding can contribute to the recovery of species and ecologies, however the nature of that contribution must appropriately account for the society-nature interactions of local action situations and the co-evolutionary dynamics of the biosphere.