RUI: Influence of Economic Incentives on Common Property Forest Management: Rural Decision Making in the Context of REDD+

生态系统服务付款（PES）是一种自愿交易，个人因提供环境服务（例如保护流域的森林）而获得付款，已成为发展中国家通过控制森林砍伐来减缓气候变化的重要国际政策工具。然而，这些政策在鼓励农村人民自愿参与并最终改变其资源使用行为方面的效果如何仍不确定。本研究考察了厄瓜多尔在共有财产林地上实施的森林保护计划的影响。本研究采用制度分析、定量建模和定性方法，实证检验了PES支付和合同制度是否以及如何影响农村和土著社区(1)参与森林保护协议、(2)改变其森林利用规则、最终(3)改变个人森林利用行为和由此产生的保护结果的决策。通过问卷调查、焦点小组和森林测量技术，在决定参加和不参加支付计划的社区收集数据。厄瓜多尔的PES森林保护项目是一项政策实验，旨在更好地了解更广泛的PES合同和付款模式如何与农村资源使用者的决策模式相对应，特别是那些拥有土地共有产权的人。如果PES项目与参与者的决策重点不一致，我们可能会浪费数百万美元来推广一项无法支持当地生计或保护世界森林的政策。通过定量和定性相结合的方法，本研究探讨了与其他非货币因素相比，货币激励在农村土地利用决策中的作用。研究结果为政策制定者和从业者提供了有关森林保护激励措施使用的宝贵信息，并为改进发展中国家PES项目的设计提供了建议。

Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES), a voluntary transaction in which an individual receives payment for provision of an environmental service (e.g. forest for watershed protection), has emerged as a prominent international policy tool to mitigate climate change by controlling deforestation in developing countries.It remains uncertain, however, how effective these policies are in encouraging rural people to voluntarily participate, and ultimately change, their resource use behaviors. This study examines the impacts of an Ecuadorian payment for forest conservation program implemented on common-property forest lands. The study uses institutional analysis, quantitative modeling and qualitative methods to empirically test if and how the PES system of payments and contracts impacts rural and indigenous communities' decision to (1) participate in forest conservation agreements, (2) change their forest-use rules, and ultimately, (3) change individual forest use behaviors and the resultant conservation outcomes. Data are gathered via questionnaire, focus groups, and forest mensuration techniques in communities that decided to participate in the payment program and those communities that chose not to. The PES forest conservation program in Ecuador serves as a policy experiment to better understand how the broader PES model of contracts and payments corresponds to the decision-making models of rural resource users, specifically those that share common-property rights to their lands. If PES programs do not align with participant decision-making priorities, we may waste millions of dollars promoting a policy that fails to support local livelihoods or conserve the world's forests. By combining quantitative and qualitative methods, this study explores the power of monetary incentives as compared to other non-monetary factors in rural land-use decisions. The results provide valuable information to policy makers and practitioners regarding the use of incentives for forest conservation and suggestions for improving the design of PES programs in developing countries.