Promoting trees at the oil palm frontier: experimental evidence from Indonesia

Abstract

The current study addresses the question of how the adoption of native trees can be promoted among small scale oil palm farmers in Jambi Province, Indonesia. In particular, we investigate if perceptions to the ecosystem functions provided by trees planted in oil palm and intention to plan are suitable predictors to actual tree planting behavior. We conduct a randomized controlled trial with two interventions: an environmental information campaign and an additional provision of saplings. Interventions aim to close knowledge gaps and to overcome missing markets for seed material. Guided by social psychology theories, we hypothesize that information will have a positive effect on a change of perceptions and intentions, but the additional provision of saplings will encourage tree planting adoption. We employ a structural equation model to estimate mediating effects. Our findings indicate that only information in combination with saplings provision had a positive and significant effect on actual tree planting. In addition, perceptions and intentions are significant mediators to actual behavior. We conclude that interventions that combine social cognitive factors and changes on structural conditions will facilitate the adoption of pro-environmental behavior adoption. Acknowledgement : This study was undertaken as part of the research project SFB 990 Ecological and Socioeconomic Functions of Tropical Lowland Rainforest Transformation Systems, Sumatra (Indonesia) (EFForTS) funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG).