Project description
Understanding the long-term impact of conservation incentives on land use
Climate and biodiversity policies struggle with a critical gap: ensuring that environmentally sustainable practices continue once financial incentives end, particularly in regions where ecosystems and livelihoods are closely intertwined. Supported by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the PERSIST project is investigating the long-term persistence of agroforestry practices in Mexico’s Yucatán Peninsula after participation in the Sembrando Vida programme, integrating psychology, economics, and land-use science to understand why land users maintain or abandon sustainable practices. Using a mixed-methods approach that combines remote sensing, surveys, field experiments, and participatory workshops, the project will identify the behavioural, social, and ecological mechanisms that shape long-term land-use decisions and translate these findings into policy-relevant insights.
Objective
PERSIST addresses a critical blind spot in climate and biodiversity policy: the persistence of human behavior once financial incentives end. Current conservation and development programs invest billions in short-term payments to encourage sustainable land management, yet too often fail to ensure that practices continue when support is withdrawn. In Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, where Indigenous communities manage the world’s second-largest tropical forest, this question is urgent. PERSIST investigates how and why land users continue—or abandon—agroforestry practices after participating in the country’s flagship program Sembrando Vida. The project pioneers an interdisciplinary framework that integrates psychology, economics, and land-use science to explain behavioral persistence and land-use permanence. Using an innovative mixed-methods design, PERSIST combines remote sensing, surveys, field experiments, and participatory workshops to connect observed environmental outcomes with the psychological, social, and economic drivers that sustain them. The project is structured around five objectives: (1) Develop a novel framework explaining the multidimensional drivers of persistence; (2) Evaluate long-term agroforestry adoption after incentives end; (3) Identify the psychological, economic, and ecological mechanisms that facilitate or hinder persistence; (4) Engage stakeholders to co-develop policy recommendations that make incentive programs more equitable and effective; and (5) Champion the integration of psychological insights into policy design through disseminating findings and engaging in a non-academic placement at the European Forest Institute to embed results into international policy dialogues. By bridging disciplinary silos, PERSIST delivers urgently needed evidence to improve conservation and development programs, maximize the long-term impact of global investments, and directly contribute to the European Green Deal and UN Sustainable Development Goals.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.2 - Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA)
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-TMA-MSCA-PF-EF - HORIZON TMA MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships - European Fellowships
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) HORIZON-MSCA-2025-PF
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
53113 Bonn
Germany
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.