Nepalese forestry professional's attitudes towards risk and uncertainty in adaptation decisions

Abstract

The safeguarding of forests in the face of threats from climate change depends on important forest management decisions. As particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change, developing countries like Nepal require concentrated efforts to adapt. However, a crucial element that is frequently disregarded is knowledge of the factors that influence these important decisions. In this study, we investigate how risk and uncertainty aversion among forestry professionals in Nepal, as well as their beliefs regarding climate change, influence their climate change adaptation decisions. We performed a comprehensive online survey with 117 participants, using the Theory of Planned Behavior and the New Ecological Paradigm as theoretical frameworks. The study used Holt and Laury's lottery choices methodology to assess risk and uncertainty attitudes statistically and includes a separate part on climate change adaptation. The study tested the hypotheses that (1) The higher the risk and uncertainty aversion of respondents, the stronger the tendency of changing management objectives and making adaptive decisions and (2) Forest professionals who are well informed about climate change tend to practice adaptive activities. However, the results falsify the first research hypothesis since risk and uncertainty aversion has no statistically significant effect on the likelihood of professionals to adapt to climate change, whereas a risk-averse attitude positively influences the intensity of adaptation strategies as the number of adaptive options applied by forest professionals (coefficient: 0.037, p-value: 0.075).). We argued that adaptation decisions are presumably affected by a legal barrier (42.3 percent) from policies and programs that limit the decision-making authority of forest professionals. The results also falsify the second hypothesis and shows that despite having a positive perception, forest professionals do not adapt until they have enough information to do this. We conclude that providing timely, relevant information, revising current legal frameworks, and delegating enough authority to forestry professionals acting on the ground are the key steps on the road to improved forestry adaptation.