Abstract
Payments for ecosystems services (PES) can promote natural resource conservation by increasing compliance with environmental laws. Law enforcement and PES proponents assume that individuals make decisions about compliance based on expectations of gains, likelihood of being caught in non-compliance, and magnitude of sanctions. Brazil’s Forest Code, characterized by low levels of compliance, includes incentive and disincentive mechanisms. We interviewed landowners in the Atlantic Forest to understand their motivations to participate (or not) in a PES project, the effects of knowledge and perceptions of environmental regulations on compliance, and how both environmental regulations and PES affect land management decision-making. We found that neither expectations of financial gains nor PES payments drive behavioral change and that the perception of systemic corruption reduced compliance with environment regulations. There were important behavioral differences between long-term residents for whom the land is their main source of income and recent residents with little dependence on land-generated income.
Highlights
Natural conservation can be promoted both by compulsory and voluntary-mixed tools like payments for ecosystems services (PES) (e.g., [1])
PES are administered in places already subject to other environmental policies, and in many places PES provide incentives to comply with existing policies [2,3]
We investigated perceptions regarding connections between Produtores de Agua e Floresta (PAF) participation and compliance with environmental regulations, the Forest Code (FC)
Summary
Natural conservation can be promoted both by compulsory (laws) and voluntary-mixed tools like payments for ecosystems services (PES) (e.g., [1]). Mixing compulsory regulatory disincentives with voluntary incentive-based instruments can potentially improve ecosystem services and increase incomes [5]. Policy mixes or combinations can improve the quantity and quality of ecosystem services provided [6]. Evidence of the efficacy of policy mixes of PES with existing regulations has grown [7,8,9]. This study contributes to this literature using qualitative data that reveal facets of landowner decision-making about compliance with existing environmental laws and participation in PES programs. We used a case-study to investigate how forest conservation instruments using incentives and disincentives influence land use decisions
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