Willingness of private landowners to participate in forest conservation in the Chaco region of Argentina

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2022.102708Get rights and content

Highlights

  • We examined landowners' preference for forest conservation incentives.

  • We used a mix of landscape ecology, socio-psychological and economics methods.

  • PES was often chosen over selling land or property tax reductions.

  • Respondents preferred shorter conservation contract durations.

  • Respondents preferred programs which allow them to engage in silvopasture.

Abstract

To effectively conserve forests and the ecosystem services they provide, mechanisms are needed to promote conservation on private lands that reduce forest fragmentation, secure lands with high conservation value, and enhance landscape connectivity. Incentive-based programs like payments for ecosystem services (PES) are important policy tools for attaining conservation on private lands. In 2019, we conducted 81 in-person surveys with private forestland owners, whose properties are located on the border of protected areas and in corridors connecting protected areas in Argentina's Chaco forest. We examined landowners' preferences for alternative conservation incentives, how Argentina's current PES program could be altered to increase landowner enrollment, and the amount of compensation landowners require to enroll in PES. We found that knowledge of Argentina's PES program, motivations for forest ownership, attitudes toward forest conservation policy, and property characteristics influenced landowners' preferences for conservation program design. Although indigenous communities preferred conservation easements, other private landowners were more likely to choose a PES program. Research participants preferred PES programs with shorter contract lengths or that permitted them to engage in silvopasture. The payments research participants required to engage in land uses currently authorized under Argentina's PES program exceed current PES funding. Relying solely on PES to engage landowners in conservation may result in lost opportunities to conserve forest on private lands.

Introduction

Protected areas comprise only 14% of the planet's forests (Bertzky et al., 2012). Forest conservation on private lands is critical for reducing deforestation globally and ensuring spatial continuity of habitats (Jayathilake et al., 2021). Voluntary enrollment of landowners in conservation programs is essential to attain forest conservation on private lands. Tax reductions, payments in exchange for development rights (i.e., conservation easements) or ecosystem services provision (PES), and one-time land purchases that convert private lands to public protected areas are common incentives to engage landowners in forest conservation (Ma et al., 2012a; Sorice et al., 2013; Schuster et al., 2018). Regardless of incentive structure, for conservation programs to be effective, they must attract landowners and land in a manner that secures environmental benefits at a large scale (Sorice et al., 2013).

Existing research suggests that landowners' decisions whether to enroll in voluntary forest conservation programs depend on (1) their demographic (e.g., income, age, education) and socio-psychological characteristics (e.g., community identity, values, risk perceptions, stewardship motivations), (2) characteristics of their property (e.g., property size, land uses, whether they hold formal title to the land), and (3) the structure of available conservation programs (Zbinden and Lee, 2005; van Putten et al., 2011; Sorice et al., 2011; Ma et al., 2012b; Bremer et al., 2014; Selinske et al., 2015; Kreye et al., 2017a; Puri et al., 2021). For example, landowners with off-farm income may be more willing to assume the risks of entering into conservation contracts (Zbinden and Lee, 2005). Large landowners may be more likely to enroll a portion of their land in conservation programs because their agricultural production will not be jeopardized (Bremer et al., 2014). Individuals who are well-informed about conservation programs and have low risk aversion may also be more likely to participate in conservation programs (Greiner, 2015; van Putten et al., 2011; Ma et al., 2012a). Finally, conservation program design determines levels of program enrollment. Landowners are more likely to participate in voluntary conservation programs when payments are high, program compliance costs are low, and contracts are short (van Putten et al., 2011; Dickinson et al., 2012; Kreye et al., 2017a; Puri et al., 2021). Using Salta province, Argentina, as a case study, we investigated forest landowners' preferences for conservation program design, in order to assess how increased enrollment in voluntary forest conservation programs may be attained.

In 2007, the Argentine government implemented a PES program to secure environmental services by compensating landowners for forgoing conversion of native forests to agriculture (Núñez-Regueiro et al., 2019). The program was designed to counteract biodiversity and ecosystem service losses in the Argentine Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot. The Chaco forest (60% of which is located in Argentina) has experienced one of the highest rates of agricultural expansion globally (15.8 million ha, 21%, of woodlands transformed from 1980 to 2012; Vallejos et al., 2015, Barral et al., 2020). Agricultural expansion in the Argentine Chaco has resulted in globally relevant carbon emissions (Baumann et al., 2017) and widespread reductions in the ecosystem functions of erosion control, soil fertility, excess rainfall retention by vegetation, and carbon storage in biomass and soil (Barral et al., 2020). Associated ecosystem services of flood regulation, climate regulation and agricultural suitability have declined by 6% to over 20% across the Argentine Chaco since 1985 (Barral et al., 2020). Habitat loss combined with increased hunting for subsistence, commercial, cultural, and retaliatory reasons has further resulted in widespread biodiversity losses and defaunation in the Chaco (e.g., declining populations of near threatened species such as the jaguar Panthera onca, and vulnerable species such as the white-lipped peccary Tayassu pecari and the giant armadillo Priodontes maximus; Romero-Muñoz et al., 2020). Almost half of the largest frugivorous mammals and 80% of the largest herbivores in the Argentine Chaco are now threatened, which may result in important future changes in vegetation composition (Periago et al., 2015). Using a spatial optimization framework based on linear programming, Law et al. (2021) demonstrated that if forest cover falls below 50% the system will transition to a new state characterized by suboptimal biodiversity and carbon outcomes. The expansion of commercial agriculture also threatens indigenous communities and forest smallholders, who rely on forest resources, are usually poor, and often lack institutional support. Deforestation has reduced these communities' access to important natural resources, resulting in migration, social conflicts, loss of smallholder and indigenous knowledge and skills, and reduced resilience to shocks (Cotroneo et al., 2021; del Giorgio et al., 2021; Levers et al., 2021).

Argentina's PES program is intended to secure ecosystem services in the Chaco by reducing or preventing deforestation. The PES program operates within the framework of the National Forest Law (Act 26.331 de Presupuestos Mínimos de Protección Ambiental de los Bosques Nativos), which classifies forested lands into three zones (red, yellow, and green) according to their conservation importance (García Collazo et al., 2013). Landowners cannot use land in the red zone for extractive and commercial activities because these lands have the highest conservation value. The law allows sustainable extractive and commercial activities (e.g., timber production, silvopasture) in the yellow zone, which has medium conservation value. The law allows most land uses, including forest clearing, in the green zone because these lands have low conservation value. Landowners who enroll in the program must submit conservation or sustainable management plans for approval by the government to obtain payments. These plans detail the actions landowners will take to enhance six ecosystem benefits identified by the Argentine government, specifically: water regulation; biodiversity conservation; improved soil and water quality; greenhouse gas sequestration; landscape diversification and aesthetics; and defense of the cultural identity of criollos (smallholders) and indigenous communities. To date, less than 17% of forestland in the Chaco region has been enrolled in the PES program (Núñez-Regueiro et al., 2019).

In addition to PES, a few other incentive-based agreements exist in Argentina to protect forests. Non-profit organizations have promoted direct purchase of lands as a conservation strategy (Myron et al., 2009) and fostered conservation easements in Argentina since 2010. Currently three conservation easements exist in Patagonia (Patagonia Land Trust, 2020), but conservation easements have not been implemented in provinces outside Patagonia. Property tax reductions are another common conservation tool in other countries (Ma et al., 2014) but have typically not been used to secure conservation outcomes in Argentina.

Given the relatively low enrollment levels for the current PES program, we conducted a study to assess how the current PES program could be restructured to increase uptake by landowners, and whether alternative conservation programs would be preferred by landowners. Using a mix of landscape ecology, socio-psychological, and economic theories and methods, we investigated how private landowners in Salta province, Argentina, may be engaged in voluntary forest conservation programs. We conducted our research in the Argentine Chaco, the second largest forested ecoregion in the Americas (Grau et al., 2005). Most forested land in the Chaco is privately owned, and this region faces one of the highest rates of deforestation in the world (Hansen et al., 2013), owing to conversion of the forest to agriculture and pasture. In addition to the serious ecological consequences of deforestation (e.g., habitat and biodiversity losses), conversion of the Chaco to agricultural production is jeopardizing the survival of many rural and indigenous communities that rely on natural resources contained within the forest (Seghezzo et al., 2011). Smallholders and indigenous communities have received only a small share of PES payments (Cotroneo et al., 2021) and have been ecologically marginalized through loss of access to forest resources, thereby reinforcing poverty traps for these forest-dependent communities (Levers et al., 2021).

Our study was designed to expand the limited research on the effectiveness of Argentina's PES program. To date, this research literature has highlighted the importance of social norms (i.e., expectations by other landowners that individual landowners should conserve forest on their land; Mastrangelo et al., 2014) and the agricultural value of land (a 1% increase in the agricultural value of land doubles deforestation rates; Alcañiz and Gutierrez, 2020) in landowners' decisions to conserve forest. Adverse selection has undermined the effectiveness of Argentina's PES program, with lands with high conservation value being enrolled for short durations while lands with low conservation value are enrolled for longer periods of time (Núñez-Regueiro et al., 2019). Existing research suggests that absentee landowners are less likely to enroll in PES, only small parcels are enrolled in areas with high agricultural potential, and that landowners are more likely to enroll land for an extended period of time if they are permitted to engage in land use activities that generate income (Núñez-Regueiro et al., 2020).

We aimed to answer three questions: (1) which voluntary forest conservation programs would landowners and indigenous communities in the Chaco region prefer; (2) how could the current Argentine PES program be altered to increase enrollment; and (3) what payment per hectare would landowners and indigenous communities require to enroll in PES? We predicted that program structure (incentive type and level, program duration, permitted land use activities), the zone in which an individual owns land (green, yellow, red), and landowners' socio-psychological and demographic characteristics (e.g., source of income) would influence their decision to enroll in voluntary forest conservation programs. Our research targeted landowners and indigenous communities who have the potential to help conserve large, contiguous forested areas by protecting forestlands that surround and connect public protected areas in the Chaco forest in Salta province, Argentina.

Section snippets

Study area

The Chaco region has a low population density and landholdings are mostly private (Piquer-Rodríguez et al., 2018). Argentina's protected area system covers less than 2% of the Chaco forest (Izquierdo and Grau, 2009). Forest conversion outside protected areas has progressively isolated these protected areas, undermining their effectiveness in conserving the Chaco forest (de la Sancha et al., 2021), but the rate of deforestation has slowed with implementation of the National Forest Law (Matteucci

Respondent demographic characteristics, land ownership and knowledge of Argentina's PES program

We found no statistical difference in landholding size across respondents and non-respondents (p = 0.82; Appendix 6). However, respondents tended to have properties with more restrictive land-use zoning (i.e., more land in red and yellow zones) than non-respondents (p < 0.05). Respondents were mainly individual, non-corporate landowners (63%; Table 3). The median age of non-corporate landowners and respondents from indigenous communities was 51 years old (mean = 52.9 years, SD = 11.8 years,

Discussion

Incentive-based programs are important policy tools to attain conservation on private lands. However, designing conservation programs that are likely to attain additionality (i.e., conservation actions by landowners that would not have occurred in the absence of these programs; Engel et al., 2008, Bennett, 2010) is challenging without a clear understanding of landowners' financial and socio-psychological motivations for engaging in conservation (Kaczan and Swallow, 2013; Kreye et al., 2017b;

Conclusion

Understanding landowners' willingness to enroll in conservation programs is challenging. Our results suggest that landowners' knowledge about conservation programs, attitudes toward forest conservation policy, and land characteristics influence their willingness to participate in forest conservation and their preferences for conservation program design. Although indigenous communities preferred conservation easements, other private landowners preferred PES over alternative conservation

CRediT authorship contribution statement

Cristina C. Nunez Godoy: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Investigation, Resources, Writing – original draft, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Funding acquisition. Elizabeth F. Pienaar: Conceptualization, Methodology, Formal analysis, Resources, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition. Lyn C. Branch: Conceptualization, Methodology, Resources, Writing – review & editing, Visualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition.

Declaration of Competing Interest

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Acknowledgments

We thank survey participants, M. Nunez-Regueiro, E. Derlindatti, V. Quiroga, L. de los Rios, Fundación Proyungas, the Argentine Ministry of the Environment, and Tepeyac for their contributions. Special thanks to M. Swisher and J. Soto for their assistance with research development. We are also grateful to the University of Florida's Tropical Conservation AND Development Program, Neotropical Grassland Conservancy, and Rufford Foundation for funding this research.

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