Economic incentives for coordinated management of forest land: a case study of southern New England

Coordinated management among many private forest land owners will often be required to achieve ecosystem management at the landscape scale. A case stu dy of landowners in southern New England shows that although most hold favo rable attitudes towards coordinated management, economic incentives may be needed to actually implement coordinated management programs. Yet the conjo int analyses used in this study suggests that economic incentives, such as property tax reductions, are not likely to substantially increase the proba bility that coordinated management programs will actually be undertaken. Fo r example, an increase in property tax savings from $706 per year to $2000 per year only increased the probability of program adoption from 1.4 to 5.6 %. Alternative ways in which coordinated management programs might be marke ted are discussed. (C) 2001 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.