Framing the private land conservation conversation: Strategic framing of the benefits of conservation participation could increase landholder engagement Alexander M. Kusmanoff a, *, Mathew J. Hardy a , Fiona Fidler a,b , Georgina Maffey c , Christopher Raymond d , M.S. Reed e , James A. Fitzsimons f ,g , Sarah A. Bekessy a a School of Global Urban and Social Studies, RMIT University, GPO Box 2476, Melbourne VIC 3001, Australia b School of BioSciences, University of Melbourne, Parkville Campus, Victoria 3010, Australia c Aberdeen Centre for Environmental Sustainability (ACES), University of Aberdeen, 23 St. Machar Drive, Aberdeen AB24 3UU, Scotland, United Kingdom d Department of Landscape Architecture, Planning and Management, Sweedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), PO Box 58, S-230 53 Alnarp, Sweden e N8 Agri-Food Resilience Programme, Institute for Agri-Food Research & Innovation and Centre for Rural Economy, School of Agriculture, Food and Rural Development, Agriculture Building, Newcastle University, Newcastle upon Tyne NE1 7RU f The Nature Conservancy, Suite 2-01, 60 Leicester Street, Carlton VIC 3053, Australia g School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, 221 Burwood Highway, Burwood VIC 3125, Australia A R T I C L E I N F O Article history: Received 9 July 2015 Received in revised form 6 December 2015 Accepted 28 March 2016 Available online 18 April 2016 Keywords: Framing Value orientation Biodiversity Conservation Private land conservation Market-based instruments Communications Value orientation Marketing A B S T R A C T How conservation messages are framed will impact the success of our efforts to engage people in conservation action. This is highly relevant in the private land conservation (PLC) sector given the low participation rates of landholders. Using a case study of PLC schemes targeted at Australian landholders, we present the first systematic analysis of communication strategies used by organisations and government departments delivering those schemes to engage the public. We develop a novel approach for analysing the framing of conservation messages that codes the stated benefits of schemes according to value orientation. We categorised the benefits as flowing to either the landholder, to society, or to the environment, corresponding to the egoistic, altruistic and biospheric value orientations that have been shown to influence human behaviour. We find that messages are biased towards environmental benefits. Surprisingly, this is the case even for market-based schemes that have the explicit objective of appealing to production-focussed landholders and those who are not already involved in conservation. The risk is that PLC schemes framed in this way will fail to engage more egoistically oriented landholders and are only likely to appeal to those likely to already be conservation-minded. By understanding the frame in which PLC benefits are communicated, we can begin to understand the types of people who may be engaged by these messages, and who may not be. Results suggest that the framing of the communications for many schemes could be broadened to appeal to a more diverse group (and thus ultimately to a larger group) of landholders. ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Private land conservation (PLC) has become increasingly common over the last twenty years as a means of implementing conservation action beyond the protected area network. Interna- tionally, PLC is implemented through a range of instruments including direct payments, tax incentives, cap and trade markets, voluntary markets and auctions and certification programs (Pascual and Perrings, 2007; Pirard, 2012; Yang et al., 2010). Despite widespread implementation, there has been mixed success in engaging rural landholders in conservation initiatives (e.g. Posthumus et al., 2010; Prager and Posthumus, 2010). Thinking strategically about how PLC messages to rural land- holders are framed could help increase engagement. To under- stand how messages are currently framed, we use an Australian case study to examine how PLC organisations currently promote the benefits of landholder participation. Our purpose here is to critically analyse the current information provided to this target group, and discuss alternative framings that may improve participation rates. * Corresponding author. E-mail address: alex.kusmanoff@rmit.edu.au (A.M. Kusmanoff). http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.envsci.2016.03.016 1462-9011/ ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. Environmental Science & Policy 61 (2016) 124–128 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Environmental Science & Policy journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/env sci