Abstract

This Article analyzes the design of conservation incentives in light of behavioral psychology research and suggests ways to improve their efficacy. Private lands play a critical role in biodiversity preservation, open-space conservation, ecosystem services, and wetlands management. Traditional command and control regulation has not adequately addressed environmental harms on private lands because of the costs of regulating large numbers of geographically dispersed landowners, the difficulty of using regulation to promote active management, and strong public resistance. In response, the use of financial incentives for conservation and stewardship on private lands has grown dramatically in the past two decades. As conservation incentives have proliferated, however, it has become apparent that these tools have their own structural deficits and costs. Psychological research offers insight into designing incentives, specifically direct payment programs and perpetual conservation easements, to maximize their impact and reduce enforcement costs. First, the research indicates that durable change in stewardship behavior typically requires ongoing, intermittent reinforcement through staggered or outcomes-based payments. Second, psychological literature on the "crowding out" of voluntary motivation highlights the importance of program administration and incentive size. Last, the Article considers ways to restyle administration to increase participation and market incentives more effectively.

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