Willingness to accept for rewilding farmland in environmentally sensitive areas

Abstract

Rewilding farmland represents a good policy option to restore and conserve the environment in environmentally sensitive areas. This paper is the first to analyze farmers’ preferences for rewilding schemes, focusing on partial and complete passive rewilding schemes and using a novel methodological application of the contingent valuation method and an extensive Mediterranean agricultural system as a case study. The results show that farmers would only be willing to participate in rewilding schemes at very high payment levels (€833 and €1187/ha/year on average for partial and complete rewilding schemes, respectively). High heterogeneity of preferences is also evidenced, especially related to farm characteristics (yield) and management (use of environmentally friendly practices), farmer characteristics (perceived succession probability and farm income dependence), attitudes, and opinions (with regard to the scheme’s objective). Significant policy implications can be drawn from the results, including the need for targeting in rewilding programs, the suitability of complementing them with rural economy diversification actions, and the usefulness of environmental awareness campaigns among farmers.