Assessing landowners' preferences to inform voluntary private land conservation : The role of non-monetary incentives

Abstract

Private land conservation (PLC) is an increasingly recognized strategy to help address the global biodiversity crisis. Understanding landowners' context-dependent preferences for different PLC policies is key to designing and implementing successful voluntary strategies aiming to foster participation and long-term engagement. However, funding shortfalls and diverse cultural values mean that traditional approaches such as land acquisi-tion or payment for ecosystem services policies may not be the best approaches to increase landowners' participation in PLC. In this study, we examine landowners' preferences for monetary and non-monetary in-centives and how these might increase participation in PLC. We also address a geographical gap in PLC literature by assessing landowners' preferences for voluntary PLC policies in Uruguay, a country located in the Rio de la Plata Grasslands ecoregion (South America), one of the most endangered and least protected biomes worldwide. This case study provides a useful test-bed of non-monetary incentives, since 96% of the land is privately owned and no voluntary PLC strategies are in place yet. Using a choice experiment, we found that landowners were more willing to engage in voluntary PLC if policies align with their values and needs. Non-monetary incentives, such as access to training and technical support, were preferred over monetary payments, highlighting oppor-tunities to develop context-specific policies that would foster environmental stewardship and long-term engagement. Designing policies by including a diverse set of instruments, flexible contract lengths, and inte-grating the context-specific social and cultural characteristics underlying landowners' identities and values, are crucial aspects for increasing participation.