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Impacto del Pago Comunitario por Intervención de Servicios Ambientales sobre Uso del Bosque en Menabe, Madagascar
Author(s) -
SOMMERVILLE MATTHEW,
MILNERGULLAND E.J.,
RAHAJAHARISON MICHAEL,
JONES JULIA P.G.
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
conservation biology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 2.2
H-Index - 222
eISSN - 1523-1739
pISSN - 0888-8892
DOI - 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2010.01526.x
Subject(s) - intervention (counseling) , incentive , payment , psychological intervention , government (linguistics) , behavior change , economic interventionism , business , environmental resource management , psychology , political science , social psychology , economics , finance , politics , law , microeconomics , linguistics , philosophy , psychiatry
Despite the growing interest in conservation approaches that include payments for environmental services (PES), few evaluations of the influence of such interventions on behaviors of individuals have been conducted . We used self‐reported changes in six legal and illegal forest‐use behaviors to investigate the way in which a PES for biodiversity conservation intervention in Menabe, Madagascar, influenced behavior . Individuals ( n = 864) from eight intervention communities and five control communities answered questions on their forest‐use behaviors before and after the intervention began, as well as on their reasons for changing and their attitudes to various institutions . The payments had little impact on individuals’ reported decisions to change behaviors, but it had a strong impact on individuals’ attitudes . Payments appeared to legitimize monitoring of behaviors by the implementing nongovernmental organization (NGO), but did not act as a behavioral driver in their own right . Although there were no clear differences between changes in behaviors in the intervention and control communities, the intervention did influence motivations for change . Fear of local forest associations and the implementing NGO were strong motivators for changing behavior in communities with the PES intervention, whereas fear of the national government was the main reason given for change in control communities . Behavioral changes were most stable where fear of local organizations motivated the change . Our results highlight the interactions between different incentives people face when making behavioral decisions and the importance of considering the full range of incentives when designing community‐based PES interventions .