Understanding landowners' preferences to participate in tropical mountain forest restoration

Abstract

Introduction: The restoration of degraded tropical forests is a promising strategy to mitigate the climate and biodiversity crises. Across the globe large areas have the potential to be restored through multiplying small-scale initiatives implemented by landowners working at local scales. Understanding landowners' preferences related to the attributes of forest restoration could aid to scale-up the outcomes of restoration. Objectives: Our goal was to elicit the preferences of landowners working with forest restoration in the Tropical Andes of Ecuador and to evaluate how environmental and socioeconomic factors influence their choices. Methods: We used a choice experiment approach to elicit landowners' preferences regarding forest restoration. We presented a hypothetical forest restoration program to 81 landowners in which coordination among stakeholders is important to diversify plant communities across restored sites. We assessed four attributes of forest restoration: (1) restoration strategy, (2) land share, (3) the coordination instance, and (4) monetary compensation. Results: We found that if the proposed forest restoration program is focused on habitat enrichment and coordinated either by NGOs, farmers, or scientists, landowners will be more willing to participate than in a program led by the government and focused on nucleation. The probabilities of landowners to join the proposed program declined with elevation, while the probabilities of opt-out declined with the size of non-forest productive land within farms. Conclusions: Trust in non-governmental stakeholders can be harnessed to support government-led initiatives, which have the capacity to drive large-scale interventions. Environmental and socioeconomic factors, influence decision-making in forest restoration.