Redefining Absentee: Towards Understanding Place Attachment and Stewardship in Non-Residential Landowners in Texas, USA

Christina W. Lopez (), Evgenia Spears, Tyler C. Hartwick, John C. Killough and Michael A. Schuett
Additional contact information
Christina W. Lopez: The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA
Evgenia Spears: Department of Rangeland, Wildlife & Fisheries Management, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA
Tyler C. Hartwick: The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA
John C. Killough: The Meadows Center for Water and the Environment, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX 78666, USA
Michael A. Schuett: Department of Rangeland, Wildlife & Fisheries Management, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX 77843, USA

Geographies, 2024, vol. 4, issue 1, 1-20

Abstract: Approximately 30% of the private land in Texas, USA is under absentee ownership. Understanding who absentee landowners are and their land management behaviors is vital for the protection of privately owned landscapes and the ecosystem services that they support, including surface water quality. By focusing on absentee landowners with properties in five watersheds in Texas, we utilized the theory of place attachment to gain insights into absentee landowners’ land management decisions and their involvement in water quality conservation programs, such as watershed protection plans (WPPs). By conducting a mail-out survey, we obtained 100 responses, which were analyzed using an exploratory factor analysis and a series of nonparametric assessments. The results revealed that, contrary to the term “absentee”, the landowners in our study demonstrated strong feelings of place attachment and heightened land stewardship. Based on these findings, we suggest that instead of considering absentee landowners as obstacles to collaborative conservation initiatives, such as WPPs, natural resource practitioners should recognize and capitalize on the emotional attachment that these landowners have to their properties, thereby fostering their involvement. By demonstrating the owner–land relationship and its behavioral outcomes among absentee landowners, this study provides a novel contribution to the existing literature on place attachment in the context of private land management and conservation.

Keywords: landownership; place attachment; stewardship; natural resource management; absenteeism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: Q1 Q15 Q5 Q53 Q54 Q56 Q57 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2024
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7086/4/1/7/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2673-7086/4/1/7/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jgeogr:v:4:y:2024:i:1:p:7-114:d:1331874

Access Statistics for this article

Geographies is currently edited by Ms. Fannie Xu

More articles in Geographies from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().