Ecological reconciliation on private agricultural land: Moving beyond the human-nature binary in property-environment contests

Resolution of the troubled relationship between private property and the environment appears to have reached an impasse. This chapter discusses the documented experiences of leaders in regenerative agriculture, who have attempted to go beyond ecological restoration through creating ‘farmscapes’ that reconcile agricultural practices with the Australian environment. It argues that place-based approaches that reconcile humans with nature, and the particular potentials and emergent conditions of living landscapes, rather than restoring a ‘nature’ that has been ‘lost’ or is external to humans, can address the underlying anthropocentrism of Anglo-Australian property. Reconciliation approaches de-centre the human, and recognise that the environment is dynamic, reflexive and a relational–material co-becoming, rather than an end point. Reconciliation is suggestive of a different ontological relation between humans and nature; it moves beyond the limits of the subject/object dichotomy by acknowledging their connectivity and relationality. Private land ownership may present unique opportunities to support regenerative agriculture and ecological reconciliation.