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We know we have to change. We know the time is now. The question is: How?

Driven by agricultural expansion and the conversion to cash crops and monocultures, the past decades have seen rapid changes affecting landscapes in the tropics – coming largely at the expense of intact forests and other critical ecosystems.

Ultimately, most if not all of these changes are attributable to human behavior – within producer as well as consumer communities. Yet, the most prominent responses to these land use challenges such as REDD+, or more recently, the global large-scale restoration agenda have focused on a limited array of tools designed to shift human behavior, namely financial incentives and legal restrictions.

While other policy fields like public health have a longer history in putting people and their real motivations at the center, concepts from behavioral psychology and economics are now gaining traction in environmental policy. And they did already shape conservation practice for decades, lessons from which solutions are now being distilled.

Following a session at the Global Landscapes Forum in December 2017, we will convene a group of renowned experts from conservation, development, behavioral design and community-based action to discuss with you the Importance of Behavior Change for Land Use Change. We look forward to an exciting debate that will shed light on how practitioners, scientists and professionals can draw from the wealth of insights that behavior economics and psychology have surfaced.