Experimental Evidence on the Impact of Payments and Property Rights on Forest User Decisions

O Sarobidy Rakotonarivo,Brian Dillon,Julie Razafimanahaka,A Bradley Duthie,Ranaivo Andriarilala Rasolofoson,Nils Bunnefeld,Andrew Bell,Adams Kipchumba

doi:10.3389/fcosc.2021.661987

Abstract

Clearing forests for swidden agriculture, despite providing food to millions of farmers in the tropics, can be a major driver of deforestation. Payments for ecosystem services schemes can help stop swidden agriculture-induced forest loss by rewarding forest users for maintaining forests. Clear and secure property rights are a key prerequisite for the success of these payment schemes. In this study, we use a novel iterative and dynamic game in Madagascar and Kenya to examine farmer responses to individual and communal rights to forestlands, with and without financial incentives, in the context of swidden agricultural landscapes. We find that farmer pro conservation behaviour, defined by the propensity to keep forests or fallows on their lands, as well as the effects of land tenure and conservation incentive treatments on such behaviour, differ across the two contexts. The average percentages of land left forest/fallow in the game are 65 and 35% in Kenya and Madagascar, respectively. Individual ownership significantly improves decisions to preserve forests or leave land fallow in Madagascar but has no significant effect in Kenya. Also, the effect of the individual tenure treatment varies across education and wealth levels in Madagascar. Subsidy increases farmers' willingness to support conservation interests in both countries, but its effect is four times greater in Kenya. We find no interaction effects of the two treatments in either country. We conclude that the effectiveness of financial incentives for conservation and tenure reform in preserving forestland vary significantly across contexts. We show how interactive games can help develop a more targeted and practical approach to environmental policy.

Highlights

Nature conservation is coming increasingly into conflict with human livelihoods (Redpath et al, 2013)
We aimed to address the following questions: (i) How do communal or individual rights affect farmer decisions to farm or keep forests or fallows in the games? (ii) Do financial incentives affect rural farmers’ willingness to keep forests or fallows? (iii) Do the effects of the tenure and financial incentive treatments vary across different wealth, education and community trust levels? (iv) How do treatment effects vary across the two contexts, Madagascar and Kenya?
Participants in Kenya were much more food secure; they perceived that they had a variety of food and enough to eat for almost 12 months for the past year (Supplementary Table 1)

Summary

Introduction

Nature conservation is coming increasingly into conflict with human livelihoods (Redpath et al, 2013). Large forest areas are being converted to agriculture by shifting cultivation, known as swidden agriculture (Fox et al, 2000). While other macro-economic or distant factors such as migration and remote market demand can cause forest loss (Meyfroidt et al, 2013; Cairns, 2015), swidden agriculture has long been considered a major driver of deforestation and Interactive Games With Swidden-Agricultural Farmers biodiversity loss (Zabel et al, 2019). Market-based economic instruments such as payments for ecosystem services (PES) schemes offer potential for reducing swidden agriculture-induced forest loss while improving local people’s livelihoods (Namirembe et al, 2014; Wunder, 2015). PES programmes are based on rewarding forest users for maintaining or increasing the provision of ecosystem services (Noordwijk et al, 2012)

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Results

Conclusion