sustainability Article Assessments of Landowners’ Willingness to Accept Compensation for Participating in Forest Certification in Shandong, China Nana Tian 1, * , Neelam Poudyal 2 and Fadian Lu 3   Citation: Tian, N.; Poudyal, N.; Lu, F. Assessments of Landowners’ Willingness to Accept Compensation for Participating in Forest Certification in Shandong, China. Sustainability 2021, 13, 903. https:// doi.org/10.3390/su13020903 Received: 13 August 2020 Accepted: 12 January 2021 Published: 18 January 2021 Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affil- iations. Copyright: © 2021 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https:// creativecommons.org/licenses/by/ 4.0/). 1 College of Forestry, Agriculture & Natural Resources, University of Arkansas at Monticello, 110 University Court, Monticello, AR 71656, USA 2 Department of Forestry, Wildlife & Fisheries, University of Tennessee, 274 Plant Science Bldg., Knoxville, TN 37996, USA; npoudyal@utk.edu 3 Department of Forestry, Shandong Agricultural University, 61 Daizong Str., Taishan, Tai’an 271017, China; lfd@sdau.edu.cn * Correspondence: tian@uamont.edu Abstract: Achieving sustainable management of forests in China is becoming increasingly important with more awareness and realization of the importance of forests in environmental protection. Forest certification, a market-based instrument to promote sustainable forest management, has been recog- nized by many countries including China. While landowners’ perception and perspective regarding this voluntary program have been well-documented in the literature, how to motivate and incen- tivize landowners to participate in forest certification remained understudied questions. With the face-to-face survey of landowners in Shandong, China, this study analyzed landowners’ willingness to accept compensation for participating in forest certification. Results indicated that the average accepted compensation in terms of increased timber price was about RMB 120 (~USD 17.6)/m 3 to have their forests enrolled in certification programs. Results from multiple regression showed that the level of such compensation required for participation in certification was influenced by forestland size, owner demographics, certification-program requirements, and importance placed on timber production. These findings would inform policy-makers in designing compensation-related policies and establish incentive-based mechanisms to motivate forest landowners to participate in forest certification programs in China. Keywords: forest certification; willingness to accept; compensation; landowners; timber price increase 1. Introduction Achievement of sustainable forest management for environmental, social and eco- nomic benefits is the aim of China’s modern (after 1990 s) forestry development as natural forests are being depleted because of overharvesting of timber over its history [1–3]. In China, example practices of sustainable forest management include restoration of degraded landscape and improvement of forest ecology and biodiversity through government initia- tives and policies [3]. Forest certification as a market-based mechanism has been recognized in China in the 1990 s and the function in promoting forest management level has also been affirmed. Therefore, Chinese officials began to explore and develop forest certification systems from 2001 based on China’s forestry conditions and thus far, China has three major certification programs including the Forest Stewardship Council (FSC), Programme for the Endorsement of Forest Certification schemes (PEFC), and China Forest Certification Coun- cil (CFCC). Both the FSC and PEFC are internationally recognized certification schemes and the difference is that wood processors (in addition to other entities) are more involved in the origin of the PEFC. The CFCC system is a program developed by China itself and is endorsed by the PEFC. Although there are differences in the certification schemes’ stan- Sustainability 2021, 13, 903. https://doi.org/10.3390/su13020903 https://www.mdpi.com/journal/sustainability