Sammanfattning

Global efforts for biodiversity protection and land use -based greenhouse gas mitigation call for increases in the effectiveness and efficiency of environmental conservation. Incentive -based pol- icy instruments are key tools for meeting these goals, yet their effectiveness might be undermined by such factors as social norms regarding whether payments are considered fair. We investigated the causal link between equity and conservation effort with a randomized real -effort experiment in forest conservation with 443 land users near a tropical forest national park in the Vietnam- ese Central Annamites, a global biodiversity hotspot. The experi- ment introduced unjustified payment inequality based on luck, in contradiction of local fairness norms that were measured through responses to vignettes. Payment inequality was perceived as less fair than payment equality. In agreement with our preregistered hypotheses, participants who were disadvantaged by unequal payments exerted significantly less conservation effort than other participants receiving the same payment under an equal distribu- tion. No effect was observed for participants advantaged by in- equality. Thus, equity effects on effort can have consequences for the effectiveness and efficiency of incentive -based conservation instruments. Furthermore, we show that women exerted substan- tially more conservation effort than men, and that increasing pay- ment size unexpectedly reduced effort. This emphasizes the need to consider social comparisons, local equity norms, and gender in environmental policies using monetary incentives to motivate behavioral change.

Nyckelord

payments for ecosystem services; climate change; biodiversity; behavioral economics; environmental justice

Publicerad i

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America
2020, Volym: 117, nummer: 25, sidor: 14094-14101

SLU författare

• Salk, Carl

  • Institutionen för sydsvensk skogsvetenskap, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

• Rommel, Jens

  • Institutionen för ekonomi, Sveriges lantbruksuniversitet
    

Globala målen

Uppnå jämställdhet och alla kvinnors och flickors egenmakt
Minska ojämlikheten inom och mellan länder
Vidta omedelbara åtgärder för att bekämpa klimatförändringarna och dess konsekvenser
Skydda, återställa och främja ett hållbart nyttjande av landbaserade ekosystem, hållbart bruka skogar, bekämpa ökenspridning, hejda och vrida tillbaka markförstöringen samt hejda förlusten av biologisk mångfald


UKÄ forskningsämne

Nationalekonomi
Skogsvetenskap


Publikationens identifierare

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1919783117

Permanent länk till denna sida (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/105972