Risk Aversion, Livelihoods and Ecosystem Services Provisioning and Deforestation in Multifunctional Landscape

PIs : Philippe Delacote, Jonas Ngouhouo Poufoun (UMR 356 Laboratoire d’Economie Forestière – LEF)

Co-applicants : Marielle Brunette, Antoine Leblois, Jens Abildtrup (UMR 356 Laboratoire d’Economie Forestière – LEF)

Collaborations : Dawoei Zang, Pr. (Auburn University); Denis Sonwa (CIFOR)

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Context — In rural regions of developing countries, yield and income shocks, caused by several types of risk relate to livelihood choices of households and thus on forest land conversion. From a landscape perspective, natural resources encompass multiple dimensions, among which livelihoods production and ecosystem services provision. Many stakeholders, especially small holders and rural households consider these dimensions for seasonal gap-filling and rural safety net to shocks. Yet, in many cases, the lack of reliable insurance and credit markets are compensated by forests livelihoods and other common resources to cope with agricultural risks. There is a need to investigate the factors influencing rural households’ behavior toward risk, and how their risk preferences relate to the use of natural resources.

Objectives — This research project aims to assess (1) the factors explaining the rural households’ attitude towards risk, (2) the impact of this attitude on land-use change and deforestation and on (3) preferences for ecosystem services.

Approaches — This project relies on microeconomic theory. It first adapts rural households’ microeconomic model to our context of investigations. Tools of risk theory and microeconomic modeling will be used.  The study uses a unique dataset from the Dja-Odzala Minkebe Tri-national Transboundary Conservation Landscape (Tridom-TCL). To build the households’ risk profile, we adapted the Eckel and Grossman experiment, following Reynaud and Couture (2012). We apply a Multi-Attribute Choice Experiments (MACE) technique, based on random utility theory to reveal how the households make tradeoffs between different characteristics of conservation policies given their location and their attitude towards risk

Expected results and impacts — The Tridom-TCL rural household’s risk aversion coefficient will be estimated and analysed. Our approach will show how risk preferences impact preferences for different land uses and the provision of ecosystem services. The findings will lead to relevant policy issues, targetting sustainable land-use trends in multifunctional landscapes.