‘Gold runs through these trees’: Preferences for ecosystems payment programs in Papua New Guinea

Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) programs (such as REDD+ and voluntary carbon credit programs) have been designed to provide improved forest governance, reduced carbon emissions and diversified income sources for forest communities. However, recent evaluations of REDD+ projects across diverse countries have shown mixed results. In 2022, the government of Papua New Guinea put a moratorium on voluntary carbon credit programs due to inadequately specified processes on contract design and targeting, resulting in ongoing deforestation and lack of transparent remuneration in participating communities under select programs. As the country reassesses how to engage in voluntary carbon credit programs, this study aims to inform the design of PES programs tailored to meet the needs of forest landholders. Using recently collected rural household survey data, we evaluate the unique characteristics that are correlated with forest-owning households’ likelihood of accepting a PES contract. The discrete choice experiments included in the survey, and complementary focus group discussions suggest that forest landholders prefer PES contracts with higher financial incentives and lower land area commitments, requiring an additional $39.07 per hectare per year to preserve all forested land compared to committing half of their forested land to a PES contract. Other factors, such as household size, the use of forest land for timber production and commercial logging, ongoing forest preservation activities within a community and market access also influence respondents’ preferences for PES contracts.