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Engagement increases people willingness to sustain restored areas beyond financial incentives
Author(s) -
Mazón Marina,
Rebolledo Valentina,
OjedaLuna Tatiana,
Romero Oscar
Publication year - 2021
Publication title -
restoration ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.214
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1526-100X
pISSN - 1061-2971
DOI - 10.1111/rec.13352
Subject(s) - incentive , sustainability , incentive program , payment , socioeconomic status , business , willingness to pay , environmental resource management , public economics , finance , economics , population , ecology , demography , sociology , biology , microeconomics
Monitoring of socioeconomic impacts has often been ignored in restoration projects. Here, we design a multi‐criteria matrix to evaluate the socioeconomic implications of the Ecuadorian National Plan of Forest Restoration at local scale. We also aimed to identify the drivers that led to project sustainability, which was defined as peoples' willingness to continue restoration activities without economic incentives. The multi‐criteria matrix was translated into surveys for the technicians and local people who participated in the project. They were applied to six parishes of southern Ecuador. Between 2% to 43% of parish populations were engaged with the projects. No local business initiatives were created and economic incentives were only related to monetary payments. In half of the parishes, people were consulted about which species should be planted. About 45% of participants claimed to have received training during the restoration project. Higher community participation was perceived in implementation than in planning or monitoring. Most people agreed that the projects benefited the community either through improvements to water or through short‐term cash income obtained during planting activities. High participation and satisfaction levels significantly increased the likelihood of participants continuing with the restoration activities even without monetary incentive. Our results suggest the economic contributions of the project should go beyond short‐term payments and should be rooted in long‐term benefits to land productivity. This study helps to identify additional non‐monetary benefits, such as continuous technical assistance or social conflict resolution, that may be crucial for long‐term sustainability of restoration projects.