Private landowners and environmental conservation: a case study of social-psychological determinants of conservation program participation in Ontario

Abstract

ABSTRACT. Preservation of biodiversity and continued provision of ecosystem services increasingly relies on environmental conservation on private lands. Despite a multitude of past studies, our knowledge of the motives, opportunities, and challenges of private land conservation, especially on nonworking lands, where financial incentives are less relevant, remains incomplete. A key reason is that a variety of theoretical approaches, resulting in diverging study results, have been used to investigate private land conservation. To help remedy this problem, the current study rigorously examined several established social-psychological determinants of proenvironmental behaviors and developed a comprehensive model, which merged elements from previous studies, to investigate landowner participation in a government-sponsored private land conservation program for nonworking lands. The results are based on analysis of a mailed survey of 800 program-eligible landowners. Contrasting program participants with nonparticipants, we elicited information such as about values, worldviews, socio-demographic characteristics, and property attributes that led landowners to participate in this conservation program. The results of our study illustrate the complex relationships among values, worldviews, norms, attitudes, and behaviors emphasizing the importance of proenvironmental worldviews and of formal education for increasing the likelihood of enrollment in this government-sponsored private land conservation program. Against expectation, neither personal norms, household income, political leaning, nor the size of the eligible property area were found to be important in directly determining the decision to enroll in this conservation program. However, an association of political leaning with stated personal obligation for private land conservation was found. Our results highlight the relationship between formal education and achievement of private land conservation goals through governmental programs for nonworking lands; they also suggest opportunities for supporting conservationminded landowners who are disinclined to engage in governmental programs. To our knowledge, the current study is the first to use a comprehensive model to systematically compare alternative concepts from social psychology such as values, worldviews, norms, and attitudes and their relationships with private land conservation.

An investigation of the effects of conservation incentive programs on management of invasive species by private landowners

“…Of all questions only a small fraction was used for the current study (see Appendix B for short forms of questions relevant to this study). Previous analysis of other questions inquired into socialpsychological determinants of conservation program participation and was previously published elsewhere (Drescher, Warriner, Farmer, & Larson, 2017). Before survey rollout, the questionnaire was tested with eight private landowners.…”

Tax Shifting and Incentives for Biodiversity Conservation on Private Lands

“…) to 40% for participants in the Ontario Conservation Lands Tax Incentive Program (Drescher et al . ). Overall, these results emphasize a continuing need to identify: (1) factors affecting uptake by owners of high‐biodiversity land as well as (2) potential trade‐offs between uptake rate, the magnitude of incentives offered, and the ability to create efficiencies via the application of prioritization tools like those developed for the imperiled landscapes in BC that we studied.…”

The practice and promise of private land conservation

“…It also provides valuable insights for land conservation practitioners seeking to better understand their own organizations. Drescher et al (2017) investigated several established socialpsychological determinants of proenvironmental behaviors and integrated them to develop a comprehensive model of landowner participation in a conservation tax incentive program in Ontario, Canada. Using responses to a survey of 800 program-eligible landowners, they contrasted program participants with nonparticipants.…”