To What Extent Are Cattle Ranching Landholders Willing to Restore Ecosystem Services? Constructing a Micro-Scale PES Scheme in Southern Costa Rica

Abstract

Deforestation and the unsustainable management of agricultural and livestock production systems in tropical mountain areas have caused fragmented and degraded landscapes. Payment for ecosystem services (PES) could be an effective policy instrument with which to reduce deforestation and restore disturbed ecosystems. The national-scale PES program in Costa Rica is recognized as being successful; however, its financial resources have been mostly dedicated to forest protection, and much less to reforestation projects. This paper aims to construct a micro-scale PES scheme by using primary data generated through spatial modeling and socio-economic and stated preference surveys (choice experiment) in southern Costa Rica. The results suggest that, on average, landholders would agree to implement restoration projects on their own private pasturelands if an appropriate holistic place-based approach was applied encompassing biophysical, social, economic, and institutional aspects. Willingness-to-accept values allow payments to be linked to cattle farmers’ estimates of specific ecosystem services (ES) and land opportunity costs. The economic valuation of three ESs (erosion control, water availability, and biodiversity) allows construction of a layered payment scheme, which could encourage the development of a potential partnership between national and local institutions and NGOs as alternative buyers of ESs, reduce transaction costs, and improve household well-being.

Investigation on the Status Quo of Ecological Environment Construction in Northeast China from the Perspective of Dual Carbon Goals

“…In the past 100 years, the average temperature in Northeast China has shown a significant growth trend, especially in the past 20 years, showing an unprecedented significant warming momentum. As shown in Figure 4 , although the annual average evaporation in Northeast China shows a significant upward trend, the annual average rainfall shows a slight decrease trend, which has decreased by nearly 20-30 mm since the beginning of the 20th century [ 16 ]. Before the mid-1960s, there was abundant rainfall in Northeast China.…”

Comparing Stakeholders’ Economic Values for the Institution of Payments for Ecosystem Services in Protected Areas

“…Some PES studies have only focused on estimating the beneficiary's willingness to pay (e.g., [19][20][21]). In contrast, other PES studies have only estimated the provider's willingness to accept payment (e.g., [22][23][24]). However, different stakeholders should be considered in research as PES is a voluntary and conditional agreement between providers and beneficiaries [25].…”

Impact of Ecological Compensation on Farmers’ Livelihood Strategies in Energy Development Regions in China: A Case Study of Yulin City

“…Ecological compensation, as a comprehensive policy adjustment mechanism to solve livelihood and environmental problems, has a significant impact on farmers [25,26]. Research on ecological compensation has focused on the willingness of farmers to participate in the projects and impact on farmers′ production and lifestyle [27,28]. Some studies determine key factors that prompt farmers to participate in local ecological compensation projects [29,30] and how to stimulate farmers′ willingness to participate through effective incentive measures, such as cash compensation [31,32].…”