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Sustainable coffee production faces growing environmental and economic pressures, particularly under climate change and volatile markets. This study examines Honduran coffee farmers’ willingness to adopt sustainable land-sparing practices that integrate natural forests into production systems. Using a discrete choice experiment with 600 farmers in the Yoro region, we estimated preferences for carbon payments, coffee price premia, and technical training. Results show that financial incentives strongly influence adoption, with compensation requirements rising, the proportion of farmland allocated to forest increases. Farmers with higher incomes, existing forest cover, or prior experience with sustainable methods were more willing to participate. In contrast, lower-income farmers required greater payments due to risk aversion and opportunity costs. Findings highlight the importance of incentive structures that combine economic rewards with technical support, providing valuable insights for policies and programs that promote sustainable coffee landscapes in Central America. 

Coffee production in Central America provides a valuable yet volatile source of income for hundreds of thousands of small-scale farmers and employment for millions of workers. Expansion of coffee production into previously forested areas has caused the loss of a wide range of valuable ecosystem goods and services while contributing to global climate change and socioeconomic instability. Growth in carbon markets in agricultural settings and production of specialty coffees to meet consumer demands for products that support environmental and community outcomes suggests promise for favorable change. Yet, the incentives required to promote widespread transition toward sustainable coffee production are poorly understood, leaving policymakers with insufficient information to design scalable forest conservation initiatives. To fill this gap, we use a discrete choice experiment administered to coffee farmers in Honduras to understand farmers' willingness to conserve natural forest on farmlands in exchange for higher coffee prices and payments from carbon credits. Results suggest that payments for ecosystem services are a viable option for improving the sustainability of coffee production. However, coffee farmers may be reluctant to set aside significant percentages of the landscape for forest restoration. Low-income farmers appear more averse to forest conservation, suggesting the need for insurance against revenue losses. 

Sustainable management of common pool resources requires local information and participation. We develop a framework for managing commons based on threats, consequences, and solutions (TCS). The status of the community’s interaction with their local commons is critical in developing viable solutions to avoiding the loss of natural resources, enhancing the benefits they provide, and sustaining the functions they perform. Threats to natural resources, the consequences of their depletion, and the solutions local communities perceive as most effective to prevent this loss are assessed as related to socioeconomic and landscape factors to develop strategies for the resilience of commons. Communities and representative stakeholders (224 respondents) participated in a survey in Honduras’s Lake Yojoa watershed. The community’s perception was also evaluated for impacts of changes in land use and climate on local commons. An ordinal logistic regression analysis was used to determine the effect of land use, geographic, and demographic factors on community perceptions. Distance to the lake, landcover percentages, slope, type of work, age, and importance of tourism were significant in influencing community interaction and perception of TCS. The involvement of communities in deriving knowledge on TCS is critical to increasing the resilience of local commons to emerging threats. 

The changes in energy balance resulting from land-use change may significantly affect the amount and timing of water loss to the atmosphere as evapotranspiration (ET). Also, these will impact water fluxes in the watershed system, influencing runoff rate, flow volume, intensity, and frequency of floods. During the past century, land-use change in the SuAsCo (Sudbury-Assabet and Concord) watershed has altered basin hydrology, sediment, and nutrient load that is detrimental to water resources in SuAsCo. This study uses an integrated physically-based model Hydrological Simulation Program-FORTRAN (HSPF), along with Land Transformation Model (LTM), to assess predicted temporal and spatial changes in water, nutrient, and sediment yields for future land-use scenarios of 2035, 2065, and 2100. Results showed that a 75% increase in effective impervious area and a 50% decrease in forest area in 2100 (from 2005 baseline levels) are projected to cause a 3% increase in annual streamflow and a 69% increase in total yearly mean surface runoff. The average annual total suspended solid (TSS) yield at the watershed outlet is estimated to increase by 54% in 2100. An increase of 12% and 13% concentrations of average annual total phosphorus (TP) and total nitrogen (TN) are predicted by 2100 due to urban expansion and increased runoff volume. This integrated modeling approach will inform watershed managers and landowners about critical areas of the SuAsCo watershed to apply best management practices (BMPs) to mitigate the effects of land-use land cover (LULC) change.