SEES Fellows: Understanding Farmers' Valuation of Environmental Services and Forest Sustainability: Governance and Institutions in the Selva Zoque, Mexico

Dartmouth College, Hanover NH

Investigators

Abstract

In this Award from the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows Program) Dr. Claudia Rodriguez-Solorzano from Dartmouth College will study the factors that govern individual farmers decision making when it comes to land-use decisions, how these farmers weigh the benefits of providing environmental services, balanced against benefits that they derive from using land for agricultural activities. This award has support from: the Directorate for Social, Behavioral and Economic Sciences, the Directorate for Biological Sciences, the Office of International and Integrative Activities, and the Office of Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR). The proposed research project will contribute to local and global social-environmental sustainability by advancing our understanding about motivations of human behavior associated with the provision of environmental services. For this purpose the research will answer two interrelated questions: 1) how do governance and institutions affect farmers valuation of environmental services provided by forests? and 2) for those farmers who value environmental services, what factors influence their decisions on their land use? The project ties together current research on farmer behavior from anthropology, collective action and institutions from political science, and environmental services for economics. This multidisciplinary approach provides a platform for developing an empirically based framework for developing policies that will enhance sustainability of ecosystem service provision. The proposed extensive empirical work will provide opportunity to test and refine the framework. This research uses the Selva Zoque, a highly biodiverse region of intact tropical forest in southern Mexico, as its laboratory. Divided among the states of Oaxaca, Veracruz, and Chiapas, different governance mechanisms are in place to support farmer provision of environmental services, including community-based management and protected areas. Dr. Rodriguez-Solorzano will be working with collaborators Richard Howarth (Dartmouth College) and Eduardo Brondizio (Indiana University), as well as young scientists (research assistants and students) on this research. This project is supported under the NSF Science, Engineering and Education for Sustainability Fellows (SEES Fellows) program, with the goal of helping to enable discoveries needed to inform actions that lead to environmental, energy and societal sustainability while creating the necessary workforce to address these challenges. With SEES Fellows support, this project will enable a promising early career researcher to establish themselves in an independent research career related to sustainability.