Forest owners' and farmers' willingness to accept landscape transformation measures for wildfire mitigation: A choice-experiment application

Despite substantial research efforts and significant public investment in wildfire mitigation over recent decades, outcomes have remained insufficient. Current proposals increasingly emphasize landscape-scale interventions aimed at enhancing mosaic diversity and reducing the extent of large, contiguous forest areas. Portugal has recently adopted this approach through a publicly funded landscape transformation program, implemented since 2020, to promote land-use diversification in wildfire-prone regions and strengthen landscape resilience. However, evidence on the economic feasibility of such measures remains limited, particularly in settings dominated by private landownership, where landowner participation is essential for effective implementation. This article addresses this gap by presenting a study conducted in a highly fire-prone forest landscape in central Portugal, characterized by fragmented and predominantly private landholdings. Using surveys and choice experiments with rural landowners, including farmers and forest owners, we assess their willingness to accept voluntary contracts requiring land-use changes, such as converting plantation forests to native forest or agricultural uses, or implementing shrubland clearing, in exchange for public payments. The results support the development of supply curves for wildfire risk-reduction services, linking payment levels to the proportion of landowners willing to provide these services. They also underscore the importance of accounting for heterogeneity among landowners when designing proactive landscape management strategies. Such information is crucial for determining the scale of public investment required to achieve targeted landscape transformations and wildfire risk-reduction objectives.