Biodiversity Protection in Private Forests: PES Schemes, Institutions and Prosocial Behavior

Abstract

The overall research question addresses the effectiveness of incentive mechanisms in poli -cies that enhance private forest owners’ biodiversity protection. In particular, the paper focuses on the link between forest owners’ motivations, incentives, and institutions, and questions the incentives of the current biodiversity protection policies. Our hypothesis is that the purely monetary nature of the incentives can cause a “crowding out effect”, i.e., forest owners may reduce their voluntary contribution to biodiversity protection that is driven by prosocial motivations (altruism, self-image, etc.). With this in mind, as well as the knowledge acquired via this project about forest owners’ motivations, we looked for the most effective combinations of “incentive mechanisms” (monetary and non-monetary) and “institutions” (national and local authorities, NGOs, etc.) to encourage forest owners to adopt biodiversity protection measures in their forests.

Forest functions and abiotic threats in private forests: conclusions from an empirical analysis of stakeholder opinions

“…It seems that the widespread acceptance of such an understanding of the public needs of forests, especially by those stakeholder groups that achieve economic benefits from the use of wood, will become prevalent only under such conditions when there will be a partial transfer of economic benefits related to the supply of public functions. Public institutions can play a large role in this respect, using legal regulations and the authority assigned to them which can effectively engage private entities in the implementation of forest policy objectives (Weiss et al, 2011;Abildtrup et al, 2021). This function, in turn, must encourage the provision of public services (regulatory and social) that support the adaptation of forests to climate change or the protection of biodiversity (Mayer, 2019) and thus contribute to the maintenance and improvement of the standard of living.…”

“…They are expressed, inter alia, by numerous programs compensating forest owners, e.g. the costs of biodiversity protection or lost income due to resignation or limitation in timber harvesting (Engel et al, 2008;Abildtrup et al, 2021). In the light of the search for compromises between timber production and public functions, defined in the literature for over a decade as regulatory or cultural services (Felipe-Lucia et al, 2018), the issue is of particular importance.…”