Faithin Omaha eBook Collection

Download or read book Family Forest Owners' Preferences and Conservation Decisions written by Moon Jeong Kang and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 232 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The aim of this dissertation is to investigate family forest owners' preferences towards payments for ecosystem services (PES) programs. The research considers three factors, 1) individual risk preferences, 2) forest property characteristics, and 3) ownership objectives to analyze forest owners' decision to participate in PES programs. The primary objectives involve eliciting forest owners' individual risk preferences, collecting and analyzing information about forest property characteristics and ownership objectives and forest owners' preferences towards various PES program designs using a choice experiment. Mail and online surveys were conducted in the southeast Georgia to collect the data. The first study investigates the role of risk preferences in family forest owners' conservation decisions. Our study provides results using random parameter logit (RPL) model to analyze choice experiment survey data. The results reveal that one's level of risk aversion affects one's likelihood to participate in PES programs, as well as one's willingness to accept (WTA) compensation. The second study examines how observable forest management behavior reveals forest owners' preferences towards PES programs. Research findings confirm that there are significant correlations between the landowners' objectives and the composition of forest types. The RPL model results indicate that the existence of pine plantations and bottomland hardwoods forests on one's property significantly increases the likelihood that the forest owner will participate in PES programs. The third study explores the role of ownership objectives in forest management decisions. We develop an empirical typology of family forest owners. Market segmentation techniques including principal component analysis and cluster analysis are adopted to segment the forest owner groups. Our research findings confirm that there are differences between different ownership groups in how they manage the forest and their likelihood of participating in PES programs.