Trial manager - demonstrating environmental stewardship

Summary

This paper reports specifically on the June trial of the paper based Landleader survey. In conjunction with the "Landleader Focus Group Meeting Report" it covers the outcomes of the land manager trials and issues arising with key contacts used during and leading up to the trial period from a coordination perspective. This report will feed into the full evaluation of the Landleader project.
The paper does not report on the web based survey or the CATI telephone based survey although both were a part of the broader national trial of Landleader. There was a link between the paper based and web based survey as land managers who registered an interest in the paper based survey were in most cases also given the option of completing the survey on line.
The trial commenced after significant changes were made to survey format and questions following feedback from the focus group meetings held in Bendigo and Dubbo.
The target for the paper based trial was set at 100 returned surveys, with the project team estimating that this should be achieved if 150 land managers were to agree to participate in the trial. In addition to this it was estimated that 6 sheep and wool producer groups, 10 Landcare Groups and 10 CMA/NRM coordinators should be targeted. The project team also identified target CMAs and natural resource regions based on their sheep and cattle numbers, and to avoid specialised cropping areas.