Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Ecological Economics journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon Analysis Rancher Preferences for a Payment for Ecosystem Services Program in Southwestern Wyoming ☆ Kristiana Hansen a,⁎ , Esther Duke b , Craig Bond c , Melanie Purcell d , Ginger Paige e a Department of Agricultural and Applied Economics, University of Wyoming, United States b LightHawk, United States c Pardee-RAND Corporation Graduate School, The RAND Corporation, United States d Sublette County Conservation District, United States e Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, University of Wyoming, United States ARTICLE INFO Keywords: Payment-for-ecosystem services Choice experiments Rancher survey Wildlife habitat Environmental markets Conservation on private lands ABSTRACT The Upper Green River Basin in southwestern Wyoming provides critical habitat for many species with ecolo- gical and recreational significance, including mule deer and greater sage grouse. A recent energy boom has increased economic opportunities in the region but has also placed development pressures on biodiversity and ecosystem services. Ranchers in the basin place high importance on good stewardship of land and water re- sources and are amenable to providing ecosystem services on their land in exchange for additional revenue. We conduct a rancher survey in the region to elicit preferences on program design for a voluntary “Payment for Ecosystem Services” program focused on maintaining or enhancing high-quality wildlife habitat and hydrologic services. Choice experiment results indicate management practices that reduce ranch revenues require higher levels of compensation than those that do not. Ranchers report that target ecosystem service is more important to them than associated payment levels, though reservation prices tend to be high relative to land values. Overall, ranchers do not express a preference for shorter contract length but those planning to sell their ranch operations do. Fewer than 25% of ranchers are satisfied with current mitigation programs, suggesting room for improve- ment. Findings have been used to inform development of a market-based PES program in the region. 1. Introduction Public land management agencies often require energy companies to offset the residual impacts of their development activities with proximate conservation (McKenney and Kiesecker, 2009; Mead, 2015). Historically this off-site mitigation has taken place predominately on public lands. In the U.S. Intermountain West, where the landscape is often dominated by extensive ranching operations located on a patch- work of public and private lands, private land conservation can lead to better outcomes at the landscape scale (Sage Grouse Initiative, 2014). Payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs is one mechanism available for creating incentives for conservation on private lands. PES programs can match energy companies in need of mitigation with ranchers willing to implement conservation on their private lands in exchange for compensation. They encourage good stewardship of land and water resources on private lands and provide an opportunity for farmers and ranchers in rural communities to diversify their income. Such programs also have the potential to assist land management agencies and conservation NGOs in achieving their landscape-scale conservation goals. We have conducted a feasibility analysis of the potential for estab- lishing a PES program in the Upper Green River Basin (UGRB) of southwestern Wyoming (Duke et al., 2011; Hansen et al., 2015). Focus groups convened for the feasibility analysis reveal that area ranchers take pride in their good stewardship of land and water resources and are amenable to supplying conservation term leases in exchange for additional revenue. Examples of practices ranchers might undertake include altered grazing management and modified irrigation practices and timing. Buyers would likely be energy companies seeking off-site mitigation for impacts from their development activities that cannot be avoided or reclaimed on-site. Buyers could also include conservation foundations and others looking for ways to support the high-quality http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2017.10.013 Received 13 March 2017; Received in revised form 8 October 2017; Accepted 11 October 2017 ☆ This material is based upon work that is supported by Wyoming Agricultural Experiment Station funding provided through the National Institute of Food and Agriculture, U.S. Department of Agriculture, Hatch, under Accession# 227939. The authors would like to thank five landowners in the Upper Green River Basin of Southwestern Wyoming for vetting the survey instrument; Jennifer Hayward (Sublette County NRCS office) for data assistance; and Chris Bastian (University of Wyoming), Geoff Kerr (Lincoln University), and participants in the 2014 Western Agricultural Economics Association annual meeting for useful feedback on an earlier version of this paper. ⁎ Corresponding author. E-mail address: khanse18@uwyo.edu (K. Hansen). Ecological Economics 146 (2018) 240–249 0921-8009/ © 2017 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. MARK