The design of the Nature Refuge program attended to the main
barriers to participation that respondents identified: threat of
participation to property rights and productivity. Each respondent
was able to negotiate the conditions of the agreement; the flexible
nature of the program provided opportunities for production land-
holders to maintain a light grazing regime, so long as it did not
generate long-term negative environmental outcomes in the pro-
tected area, for example. The ability of the participants to electwhich
area of their property to protect can minimise the threat to future
land use options. The voluntary nature of this perpetual program
suggests that participants had a strong interest in conservation.
Flexible programs, however, carry the attendant risk of achieving