Abstract
The use of voluntary programs targeting resource conservation on private land has become increasingly prevalent in environmental policy. Voluntary programs potentially offer significant benefits over regulatory and market-based approaches. This article examines the factors affecting landowner participation in voluntary forest conservation programs using a combination of parcel-level GIS and remotely sensed data and semi-structured interviews of landowners in Monroe County, Indiana. A logistic regression model is applied to determine the probability of participation based on landowner education, membership in other non-forest voluntary programs, dominant land use activity, parcel size, distance from urban center, land resource portfolios, and forest cover. Both land use activity and the spatial configuration of a landholder’s resource portfolio are found to be statistically significant with important implications for the design and implementation of voluntary programs.
Similar content being viewed by others
Notes
Analysis of the total sample of 251 was used to describe policy participation and attitudes about current policy arrangements. Statistical analysis of factors influencing participation was reduced to 226 landowners due to missing and unreported values.
As one reviewer correctly commented, there are other alternative measures of land use activity that may better measure intensity of land use. For example, agriculture could be represented as the percent of a parcel in cultivation and grazing. However, such measures are more difficult for forest land uses since the presence of the forest cover does not directly correspond to land use activities. In fact, in the study a forest grows on unmanaged vacant parcels and could just as easily be an indication of absence of any use. Since our interest is on individual’s perceived active uses we focus instead on those land use activities self-reported by landowners.
Other alternative model specifications were also examined, principally a conditional logit model. Enrollment decisions were examined based on the conditionality of characteristics of the parcel and whether it met the minimum requirements for the majority of voluntary programs, and alternatively, based on if the landowner was involved in an activity deemed to increase the information available about the range of policies available. In neither specification did the conditional logit significantly improve on the normal logit model. While there are good theoretical and methodological justifications to prefer the conditional logit, there is a lack of established theoretical work to justify one model over another.
References
Albrecht D (1982) The New Environmental Paradigm Scale. Journal of Environmental Education 13(3):39–43
Amacher G, Koskela E, Ollikainen M, Conway M (2002) Bequest intentions of forest landowners: theory and empirical evidence. American Journal of Agriculture Economics 84(4):1103–1114
Babcock B, Lakshminarayan P, Wu J, Zilberman D (1996) The economics of a public fund for environmental amenities: a study of CRP contracts. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 78(4):961–971
Bacon P, Cain J, Howard D (2002) Belief network models of land manager decisions and land use change. Journal of Environmental Management 65(1):1–23
Barnard C, Butcher W (1989) Landowner characteristics: a basis for locational decisions in the urban fringe. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 71(3):679–684
Batie S (2001, March 16) Public programs and conservation on private lands. Private lands, public benefits: a policy summit on working lands conservation. National Governors’ Association, Washington, DC
Beach R, Pattanayak S, Yang J, Murray B, Abt R (2005) Econometric studies of non-industrial private forest management: a review and synthesis. Forest Policy and Economics 7(3):261–281
Bergh J, Ferrer-i-Carbonell A, Munda G (2000) Alternative models of individual behavior and implications for environmental policy. Ecological Economics 32(1):43–61
Bergstrom J, Dillman B, Stoll J (1985) Public environmental amenity benefits of private land: the case of prime agricultural land. Southern Journal of Agricultural Economics 17(1):139–149
Bliss M (1989) Identifying NIPF management motivations with qualitative methods. Forest Science 35(2):601–622
Bonnie R (2005) Financing private lands: conservation and management through conservation incentives in the farm bill. In: Levitt (ed) From Walden to Wall Street: frontiers of conservation finance. Island Press, Washington DC, pp 189–199
Bourke L, Luloff A (1994) Attitudes toward the management of nonindustrial private forest land. Society and Natural Resources 7(55):445–457
Boyd R (1984) Government support of nonindustrial production: the case of private forests. Southern Economic Journal: 89–107
Breetz H, Fisher-Vanden K, Jacobs H, Schary C (2005) Trust and communication: mechanisms for increasing farmers’ participation in water quality trading. Land Economics 81(2):170–190
Brook A, Zint M, Young R (2003) Landowners’ responses to an endangered species act listing and implications for encouraging conservation. Conservation Biology 17(6):1638–1649
Brown D, Pijanowski B, Duh J (2000) Modeling the relationship between land use and land cover on private lands in the Upper Midwest, USA. Journal of Environmental Management 59:247–263
Carlson L, Janssen M, Myint T, Ostrom E, York A (2002) Empirical foundations for agent-based modeling: How do institutions affect agents’ land-use decision processes in Indiana? Proceedings of the agent 2002 conference on social agents: ecology, exchange, and evolution, Chicago, IL. Argonne National Laboratory, University of Chicago
Chomitz K (2004) Transferable development rights and forest protection: an exploratory analysis. International Regional Science Review 27(3):348–373
Chomitz K, Gray D (1996) Roads, land use, and deforestation: a spatial model applied to Belize. World Bank Economic Review 10(3):487–512
Croissant C (2001) A land use classification of Monroe County, Indiana. GIS coverage. Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change (CIPEC), Bloomington, IN
Croissant C (2004) Landscape patterns and parcel boundaries: an analysis of composition and configuration of land use and land cover in south-central Indiana. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 101(2–3):219–232
Cubbage F, Harou P, Sills E (2007) Policy instruments to enhance multi-functional forest management. Forest Policy and Economics 9:833–851
Deller S, Tsai T, Marcouiller D, English D (2001) The role of amenities and quality-of-life in rural economic growth. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 83(2):352–365
Dietz T, Stern P (2002) New tools for environmental protection: education, information, and voluntary measures. National Academy Press, Washington DC
Duke J (2004) Participation in agricultural land preservation programs: parcel quality and a complex policy environment. Agricultural and Resource Economics Review 33(1):34–49
Dunlap R, Van Liere K, Mertig A, Jones R (2000) Measuring endorsement of the New Ecological Paradigm: a revised NEP scale. Promoting Environmentalism 56(3):425–442
Dvorak K (1992) Resource management by West African farmers and the economics of shifting cultivation. Proceedings of economic evaluation of “sustainable agriculture: challenges from agroforestry. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 74(3):809–815
Eisen-Hecht J (2005) A hierarchical Bayes approach to modeling choice data: a study of wetland restoration programs Duke University. PhD, p 254
Erickson D, de Young R (1992) Management of farm woodlots and windbreaks: some psychological and landscape patterns. Journal of Environmental Systems 22(3):233–247
Erickson D, Ryan R, de Young R (2002) Woodlots in the rural landscape: landowner motivations and management attitudes in a Michigan (USA) case study. Landscape and Urban Planning 58(2):101–112
Evans T, Kelley H (2004) Multi-scale analysis of a household level agent-based model of landcover change. Journal of Environmental Management 72(1):57–72
Ferraro PJ, Kiss A (2002) Direct payments to conserve biodiversity. Science 298(5599):1718–1719
Fischel W (1982) The urbanization of agricultural land: a review of the national agricultural lands study. Land Economics 58(2):236–259
Glendinning A, Mahapatra A, Mitchell C (2001) Modes of communication and effectiveness of agroforestry extension in Eastern India. Human Ecology 29(3):283–305
Gordon J, Sampson R, Berry J (2005) The challenges of maintaining working forests at the wildland-urban interface. Forests at the wildland-urban interface: conservation and management. CRC Press, Boca Raton, FL
Hammett A, Cubbage F, Luppold W (1992) A logistical regression model of southern hardwood lumber export participation. Wood and Fiber Science 24:315–329
Hardie I, Parks P (1996) Program enrollment and acreage response to reforestation cost-sharing programs. Land Economics 72(2):248–260
Hatcher A, Jaffry S, Thebaud O, Bennett E (2000) Normative and social influences affecting compliance with fishery regulations. Land Economics 76(3):448–461
Hawks L, Cubbage F, Haney H Jr, Shaffer R, Newman D (1993) Forest water quality protection: a comparison of regulatory and voluntary programs. Journal of Forestry 91(5):48–54
Ignatow G (2006) Cultural models of nature and society: reconsidering environmental attitudes and concern. Environment and Behavior 38(4):441–461
Irwin E (2000) Economic theories of land use: How well do they explain fragmentation patterns of exurban development? Working paper
Irwin E, Geoghegan J (2001) Theory, data, methods: developing spatially explicit economic models of land use change. Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment 85(1–3):7–23
Janssen M, York A (2005) The limits of economic incentives: initial results for a survey among non-industrial private landowners in Monroe County. The Woodland Stewart 14(1):13–14
Kauneckis D, Reid S (2007) A framework for evaluating transferable development right (TDR) systems. Western Political Science Association, Las Vegas
Kendra A, Hull R (2005) Motivations and behaviors of new forest owners in Virginia. Forest Science 51(2):142–154
Kilgore M, Blinn C (2004) Policy tools to encourage the application of sustainable timber harvesting practices in the United States and Canada. Forest Policy and Economics 6(2):111–127
King G, Tomz M, Wittenberg J (2000) Making the most of statistical analyses: improving interpretation and presentation. American Journal of Political Science 44(2):341–355
Kline J, Wichelns D (1996) Public preferences regarding the goals of farmland preservation programs. Land Economics 72(4):538–549
Koontz T (2001) Money talks––but to whom? Financial versus nonmonetary motivations in land use decisions. Society and Natural Resources 14(1):51–65
Koontz T, Kauneckis D, Carlson L (1998) A strategy for the integrated study of private land use in Monroe County, Indiana. Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change, Working Paper # CW99-TK1, CIPEC, Bloomington, IN
Koontz T, Steelman T, Carmin J, Smith K, Moseley C, Thomas C (2004) Collaborative environmental management: What roles for government?. Resources for the Future, Washington DC
Kristensen S, Thenail C, Kristensen L (2001) Farmers’ involvement in landscape activities: an analysis of the relationship between farm location, farm characteristics and landscape changes in two study areas in Jutland, Denmark. Journal of Environmental Management 61(4):301–318
Langpap C, Wu J (2004) Voluntary conservation of endangered species: When does no regulatory assurance mean no conservation? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 47(3):435–457
Long J, Freese J (2005) Regression models for categorical dependent variables using stata. Stata Press, College Station
Lubell M (2006) Collective action, environmental activism, and air quality policy. Political Research Quarterly 59(1):149–160
Lubell M, Schneider M, Scholz J, Mete M (2002) Watershed partnerships and the emergence of collective action institutions. American Journal of Political Science 46(1):148–163
Lubell M, Zahran S, Vedlitz A (2007) Collective action and citizen responses to global warming. Political Behavior 29(3):391–413
Lynne G, Shonkwiler J, Rola L (1988) Attitudes and farmer conservation behavior. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 70(1):12–19
Machemer P (2002) A framework for evaluating transferable development rights programmes. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 45(6):773–795
Mansfield C, Pattanayak S, McDow W (2000) What drives voluntary preservation? Significant natural heritage Areas in North Carolina. RTI International, USA
Mehmood S, Zhang D (2005) Determinants of forest landowner participation in the endangered species act safe harbor program. Human Dimensions of Wildlife 10(4):249–257
Munroe D, York A (2003) Jobs, houses, and trees: changing regional structure, local land-use patterns and forest cover in Southern Indiana. Growth and Change 34(3):299–320
Napier T, Thranen C, Camboni S (1988) Willingness of land operators to participate in government sponsored soil erosion control programs. Journal of Rural Studies 4(4):339–347
Nowak P, Korsching P (1983) Social and institutional factors affecting the adoption and maintenance of agricultural BMPs. In: Schaller FW, Bailey GW (eds) Agricultural management and water quality. Iowa State University Press, Ames, Iowa, pp 349–373
Owubah C, Le Master D, Bowker J, Lee J (2001) Forest tenure systems and sustainable forest management: the case of Ghana. Forest Ecology and Management 149(1–3):253–264
Pease J, Rankin M, Verdon J, Reisz R (1997) Why landowners restore wetlands: a national survey. Department of Animal Ecology, Iowa State University Extension
Peterson T, Horton C (1995) Rooted in the soil: How understanding the perspectives of landowners can enhance the management of environmental disputes. The Quarterly Journal of Speech 81(2):139–166
Platt R (2004) Land use and society: geography, law, and public policy. Island Press, Washington, DC
Raedeke A (2001) Ecosystem management and landowner concern about regulations: a case study in the Missouri Ozarks. Society & Natural Resources 14(9):741–759
Ross-Davis A, Broussard S, Jacobs D, Davis A (2005) Afforestation motivations of private landowners: an examination of hardwood tree plantings in Indiana. Northern Journal of Applied Forestry 22(3):149–153
Royer J (1987) Determinants of reforestation behavior among southern landowners. Forest Science 33(3):654–667
Ryan R, Erickson D, de Young R (2003) Farmers’ motivations for adopting conservation practices along riparian zones in a Mid-western agricultural watershed. Journal of Environmental Planning and Management 46(1):19–37
Samdahl D, Robertson R (1989) Social determinants of environmental concern: specification and test of the model. Environment and Behavior 21(1):57–81
Schaaf K, Broussard S (2006) Private forest policy tools: a national survey exploring the American public’s perceptions and support. Forest Policy and Economics 9:316–334
Schneider A, Ingram H (1990) Behavioral assumptions of policy tools. Journal of Politics
Segerson K, Miceli T (1998) Voluntary environmental agreements: good or bad news for environmental protection? Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 36(2):109–130
Serbruyns I, Luyssaert S (2006) Acceptance of sticks, carrots and sermons as policy instruments for directing private forest management. Forest Policy and Economics 9(3):285–296
Sinclair A, Ludwig D, Clark C (2000) Conservation in the real world. Science 289(5486):1875
Smith R, Shogren J (2002) Voluntary incentive design for endangered species protection. Journal of Environmental Economics and Management 43(2):169–187
Söderqvist T (2003) Are farmers prosocial? Determinants of the willingness to participate in a Swedish catchment-based wetlands creation program. Ecological Economics 47(1):105–120
Soule M, Tegene, Wiebe K (2000) Land tenure and the adoption of conservation practices. American Journal of Agricultural Economics 82(4):993–1005
Stavis R (2001) Experience with market-based environmental policy instruments. The handbook of environmental economics. Kenneth and Michael intriligator arrow. Elsevier Science, North-Holland
Steel B (1996) Thinking globally and acting locally?: environmental attitudes, behaviour and activism. Journal of Environmental Management 47(1):27–36
Stein S, McRoberts R, Alig R, Nelson M, Theobald D, Eley M, Cechter M, Carr M (2005) Forests on the edge: housing development on America’s private forests. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station
Steiner F (1987) Soil conservation policy in the United States. Environmental Management 11(2):209–223
Sterner T (2003) Policy instruments for environmental and natural resource management. Resources for the Future, Washington, DC
Stonehouse P (1996) A targeted policy approach to inducing improved rates of conservation compliance in agriculture. Canadian Journal of Agricultural Economics/Revue Canadienne d’Agroeconomie 44(2):105–119
Sutherland B (1997) Nature conservation on private land in Nova Scotia. Proceedings of the Nova Scotia Institute of Sciences 44:77–89
Thomas G (2000) Private property and public benefit: habitat conservation planning for endangered species. Conservation Biology 16:327–331
United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service (2005) Forestland enhancement program
Vedung E, Rist C, Bemelmans-Videc M (1998) Carrots, sticks & sermons: policy instruments and their evaluation. Transaction Publishers, New Brunswick, NJ
Wear D, Liu R, Foreman M, Sheffield R (1999) The effects of population growth on timber management and inventories in Virginia. Forest Ecology and Management 118:107–115
Weimer D, Vining A (2005) Policy analysis: concepts and practice. Prentice Hall, Upper Saddle River, NJ
Wilson G (1996) Farmer environmental attitudes and ESA participation. Geoforum 16:115–131
Wright J (1993) Conservation easements: an analysis of donated development rights. Journal of the American Planning Association 59(4):487–493
Yang W, Khanna M, Farnsworth R, Onal H (2005) Is geographical targeting cost-effective? The case of the conservation reserve enhancement program in Illinois. Review of Agricultural Economics 27(1):70–88
York A, Hoover W (2004) Collaborative wildland management: alternatives to zoning. Midwest fish and wildlife conference, Indianapolis, IN
York A, Janssen M, Ostrom E (2005) Incentives affecting decisions of non-industrial private forest landowners. In: Dauvegrne P (ed) Global environmental politics. Edward Elgar, Cheltenham UK, pp 233–248
York A, Janssen M, Carlson L (2006) Diversity of incentives for private forest landowners: an assessment of programs in Indiana, USA. Land Use Policy 23(4):542–550
Acknowledgments
Special thanks to the efforts of the Indiana project research group and all its various members, and the work of Cynthia Croissant, Glen Green, Laura Carlson and Tom Evans, in particular. Forest cover data was obtained from a classification done by Cynthia Croissant. Research on this project was conducted while the authors were in association with the Center for the Study of Institutions, Population and Environmental Change (CIPEC) at Indiana University, Bloomington and the authors express their gratitude for that support. Thanks also to the landowners of Monroe County who gave their time and input, and to the National Science Foundation grant (SBR-9521918) that made this research possible. Finally, thank you to the three anonymous reviewers whose comments vastly improved the final article.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Appendix: Survey Questions Utilized in This Study
Appendix: Survey Questions Utilized in This Study
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Kauneckis, D., York, A.M. An Empirical Evaluation of Private Landowner Participation in Voluntary Forest Conservation Programs. Environmental Management 44, 468–484 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9327-3
Received:
Revised:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-009-9327-3