The factors affecting the adoption of irrigation by landholders, using a case study of a government-managed irrigation water release in north-west Queensland, Australia, where current land use is dominated by extensive beef-cattle production, were investigated. The key finding was that considerable social and individual learning is required for adoption of irrigation to occur. It was found that there is a prominent role for knowledge brokers in facilitating learning and change.

In the Erzurum Province, Turkey, rangelands comprise natural grassland pastures that are used mainly for livestock grazing and are in poor to moderate conditions. The factors contributing to the lower milk yields associated with the state of the rangelands, type of grazing livestock and the farmers’ demographics were explored. Altitude, stocking rate, number of milking days in the grazing season and the percentage of bare ground had negative effects on milk yield, whereas age and education level of the farmers, supplementary feeding during the grazing period, lactation number of the cows, rangeland condition and the proportion of small ruminants in the herd significantly increased milk yield. A10% deterioration in rangeland condition would result in a reduction in daily milk yield of 1.23 kg per cow, 62 kg ha^–1 of rangelands and 1255 kg per farm in a 120-day grazing period.

Because huge areas of Australian temperate woodlands have been cleared for agriculture, there are now incentives to replant trees for biodiversity and carbon storage. We measured carbon in soil and biomass in tree plantings, and nearby remnant forest and pasture, and found it could take >100 years for plantings to store carbon similar to that in uncleared forest. We conclude that biodiversity benefits of tree plantings probably outweigh carbon sequestration benefits.

Estimating competition indices of different plant species is an important research area in plant ecology. Competition parameters of grasses used to rehabilitate degraded rangelands in Africa are rarely established. A complementary relationship between the grasses used was observed before the seed-production phase. Based on the estimated competition parameters the Wilman lovegrass–Buffel grass binary mixture is the best suited to ensure successful rehabilitation of degraded semi-arid rangelands in Kenyan rangelands.

Open habitats are a key component of the Chaco eco-region of Argentina, one of the most active frontiers of land-use changes. We compared animal communities of three livestock open systems, finding non-significant differences in terms of diversity but in the composition of bird communities. Natural grasslands had the highest number of bird and mammal indicator species. We highlight their conservation value and indicate that they should be explicitly targeted by conservation and land-use policies.

There is increasing pressure for adoption of improved management practices across the Great Barrier Reef catchments. This research involved bio-economic modelling to understand the variance in financial returns for grazing enterprises across a 20-year period climate cycle. Results show that financial returns to landholders can vary substantially demonstrating that the variability in expected returns may be an important reason why landholders are cautious about changing their management practices.

Cattle ranchers who depend on native rangeland operate under social and ecological uncertainty, and yet their decision-making experiences are poorly understood. We interviewed ranchers and identified patterns in their drought management and succession decision-making processes, finding that ranchers considered non-linear, complex dynamics and multiple ways of knowing to make decisions. The findings suggest that partnerships and outreach that consider ranchers’ complex decision-making processes will be more successful.