Social influence affects individual decision-making on soil conservation. Understanding the emergent diffusion of collective conservation effort is relevant to natural resource management at the river basin level. This study focuses on the effect of subjective norms and collective action on the diffusion of Soil Conservation Effort (SCE) in the Lake Naivasha basin (Kenya) for the period 1965–2010. A geographically-explicit Agent-Based Model (ABM) version of the CONSUMAT model was developed: the CONSERVAT model.

This paper estimates the recreational value and optimal pricing for recreation services in the Maasai Mara National Park in Kenya. To achieve this objective, data from 323 Park visitors were collected. Single-site individual travel cost method (ITCM) using count data models [zero truncated Poisson (ZTP), zero truncated negative binomial (ZTNB), negative binomial with endogenous stratification (NBSTRAT), and Poisson with endogenous stratification (PSTRAT)] was applied.

Successfully implemented payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs can provide both conservation of nature and financial support to rural communities. In this paper, we explore how PES programs can be designed so as to maximize the amount of additional ecosystem services provided for a given budget. We also provide a brief summary of the use of auction mechanisms in real world PES programs.

The analysis of vulnerability of socio-ecological systems to threats of different types such as extreme climate events or change in land use draws attention to the factors and processes that determine whether the ecological, social and integrated socio-ecological systems are likely to experience harm due to exposure to the threat.

Colombia has the greatest bird diversity of any country in the world, with approximately 1900 recorded species, equivalent to 20% of all bird species worldwide. Advances made by the Colombian government to achieve greater security within the country – putting an end to the long-standing armed conflict – and to promote ecotourism can help position Colombia as one of the most important bird watching destinations worldwide. This study estimates the economic benefits from bird-based tourism in post-war Colombia.

Based on a framed field experiment, we investigate the trade-off between conservation and equity in the use of payments for environmental services (PES). We compare the effects of two PES schemes that implicitly incorporate different distributive justice principles: a flat-rate payment per biophysical unit conserved and a redistributive payment based on the Rawls maxi-min distributional principle. The main findings indicate that the introduction of a redistributive scheme can function as a multipurpose instrument.