Abstract
Aim of study: Incentivising landowners to supply ecosystem services remains challenging, especially when this requires long-term investments such as reforestation. We investigated how landowners perceive, and would respond to, distinct types of incentives for planting diverse native trees on private lands in Lebanon. Our aim was to understand landowners’ attitudes towards hypothetical Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) contracts options; their likely participation; and the potential additionality they would provide. Area of study: Highland villages situated within eight of Lebanon’s 20 Important Plant Areas Materials and methods: Mixed-methods surveys were conducted with 34 landowners to determine past, present and future land-use strategies. Study participants were presented with three differently structured reforestation contract options (or schemes). The three schemes (results-based loan, action-based grant, and results-based payments) differed in their expected risks and benefits to landowners. Qualitative debriefing questions followed each of the schemes presented. Main results: Although the results-based loan did deter uptake relative to the lower risk action-based grant, results-based payments did not significantly increase uptake or planting area, suggesting asymmetric attitudes to risk. Qualitative probing revealed economic, social (e.g. trust) and institutional factors (e.g. legal implications of planting forest trees on private land) that limited willingness to participate in the results-based contract option. Research highlights: This study demonstrates the importance of combining qualitative and quantitative methods to better understand landowner perceptions of incentives and risks, particularly in challenging socio-political contexts.
Highlights
Economic theory postulates that many environmental problems exist because markets have not been fully developed for biodiversity or most ecosystem services (Pattanayak et al, 2010)
It would be expected that participants would feel some degree of uncertainty and distrust in Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) until they could see how well it works in reality
This paper examined the potential for PES to incentivize landowners to plant diverse native trees on private property
Summary
Economic theory postulates that many environmental problems exist because markets have not been fully developed for biodiversity or most ecosystem (or environmental) services (Pattanayak et al, 2010). Increasing demand for agricultural commodities has undermined important ecosystem services such as carbon sequestration and watershed protection, making agricultural expansion one of the major drivers of deforestation and biodiversity loss globally (Gibbs et al, 2010). Despite the steady rise in protected areas in the last decade, conserving biodiversity is expected to become more challenging due to climate change and increasing competition for land (Pullin et al, 2013). Hockley for ecosystem services (PES) and agri-environment schemes are being adopted widely to incentivise landowners to supply off-farm ecosystem services from private lands (Schomers & Matzdorf, 2013)
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