Do financial rewards improve conservation behaviours or undermine them?

Many environmental programs offer financial rewards to encourage people to protect forests, waterways and other natural environments. These programs, known as Payments for Ecosystem Services (PES), aim to increase conservation by paying communities or landowners to care for natural resources.

However, some researchers have questioned whether paying people to protect nature could unintentionally reduce people’s personal motivation to care for the environment. This idea is known as ‘crowding out’, where financial rewards may replace personal, cultural or moral reasons for protecting nature. A common concern is that once payments stop, conservation efforts may also decline.

This meta-analysis explored whether these concerns are supported by evidence. The study analysed 16 lab-in-the-field experiments involving almost 2,900 participants and more than 44,000 conservation-related decisions.

Key findings

The review found that:

  • Payments encourage conservation: While incentives were in place, conservation behaviour increased, suggesting that financial rewards were effective in encouraging people to protect natural resources
  • People did not stop caring once payments ended: The study found little evidence that conservation behaviour became worse after payments stopped. In most cases, participants continued behaving similarly to how they did before the incentives were introduced
  • Community benefits matter: Programs were more effective in situations where protecting the environment also benefited the wider community, such as shared forests or natural resources used by multiple people
  • Financial rewards had the biggest impact on less engaged participants: People who initially showed lower levels of conservation behaviour were more likely to increase their efforts when incentives were introduced
  • Little evidence for crowding out: Although some researchers worry that payments could weaken people’s personal motivation to protect nature, the review found little evidence to support this concern

The authors also noted several limitations. Many of the experiments were conducted over short periods of time and in controlled research settings, meaning the results may not fully reflect how these programs operate in real communities over many years.

Conclusion

Overall, the findings suggest that financial incentives can successfully encourage environmental conservation without significantly reducing people’s longer-term willingness to protect nature once payments stop. While debates around the risks of paying for conservation continue, this study suggests that these programs are more likely to support conservation efforts than undermine them.

Reference

Vorlaufer, T., Steimanis, I. and Plassenberg, J. (2025) ‘Payment for ecosystem services and crowding of conservation behavior: A meta-analysis of lab-in-the-field experiments’, Ecosystem Services, 74, 101750. doi.org/10.1016/j.ecoser.2025.101750

Post written by Emily Foley, Monash Evidence Review Service Intern