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What motivates people to manage natural resources sustainably? Rational choice theory says people are motivated by material rewards, but cultural anthropology and other social and behavioral science literatures have shown that people are motivated by values and norms, which can be eroded by material rewards. The two theoretical stands have come to loggerheads over how to partner with people living close to the natural environment to conserve natural resources. Initially informed by rational choice theory, programs were set up worldwide to pay rural people to conserve natural resources, with payments conditional on households meeting contractual obligations such as not deforesting or polluting water. Some have argued that such payments erode intrinsic motivation to conserve, and that conditionality excludes vulnerable groups -- households with small plots, women, the ultra-poor -- because they do not have enough land and other resources to set aside for conservation. In theory, removing conditionality in incentive-based conservation programs would increase program participation, particularly attracting more members of vulnerable groups, because it would lower barriers to participation, thus improving the fairness of program outcomes. A clustered randomized controlled trial (RCT) of a Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES) program in rural Bolivia was conducted during 2016-2021 to test this idea. Unexpectedly, rates of participation in the program were similar, on average, in the conditional and unconditional arms of the RCT. The puzzle of why an unconditional treatment did not affect average participation rate motivates this proposal. Our broad objective is to build on theories from cultural anthropology, social psychology, and economics to understand people’s willingness to accept payments for conservation. To do so we used qualitative and quantitative ethnographic methods to gather new data from Bolivia to test hypotheses and explain mechanisms behind unexpected findings from the RCT. The hypotheses center on the role of trust, intrinsic motivation, and perceptions of fair compensation. Our multidisciplinary team was well qualified, having used ethnographic methods in other RCTs in rural Bolivia. 

Abstract Cooling energy demand is sensitive to urban form and socioeconomic characteristics of cities. Climate change will impact how these characteristics influence cooling demand. We use random forest machine learning methods to analyze the sensitivity of cooling demand in Chicago, IL, to weather, vegetation, building type, socioeconomic, and control variables by dividing census tracts of the city into four groups: below-Q1 income–hot days; above-Q1 income–hot days; below-Q1 income–regular days; and above-Q1 income–regular days. Below-Q1 census tracts experienced an increase in cooling demand on hot days while above-Q1 census tracts did not see an increase in demand. Weather (i.e. heat index and wind speed) and control variables (i.e. month of year, holidays and weekends) unsurprisingly had the most influence on cooling demand. Among the variables of interest, vegetation was associated with reduced cooling demand for below-Q1 income on hot days and increased cooling demand for below-Q1 income on regular days. In above-Q1 income census tracts building type was the most closely associated non-weather or control variable with cooling demand. The sensitivity of cooling demand for below-Q1 income census tracts to vegetation on hot days suggests vegetation could become more important for keeping cities cool for low-income populations as global temperatures increase. This result further highlights the importance of considering environmental justice in urban design. 

Society is confronted by interconnected threats to ecological sustainability. Among these is the devastation of forests by destructive non-native pathogens and insects introduced through global trade, leading to the loss of critical ecosystem services and a global forest health crisis. We argue that the forest health crisis is a public-good social dilemma and propose a response framework that incorporates principles of collective action. This framework enables scientists to better engage policymakers and empowers the public to advocate for proactive biosecurity and forest health management. Collective action in forest health features broadly inclusive stakeholder engagement to build trust and set goals; accountability for destructive pest introductions; pooled support for weakest-link partners; and inclusion of intrinsic and nonmarket values of forest ecosystems in risk assessment. We provide short-term and longer-term measures that incorporate the above principles to shift the societal and ecological forest health paradigm to a more resilient state. Expected final online publication date for the Annual Review of Phytopathology, Volume 61 is September 2023. Please see http://www.annualreviews.org/page/journal/pubdates for revised estimates.