Landlord Awareness of and Willingness to Participate in a Green Forestation Plan: The Case of Tainan County

A green forestation plan (GFP) is expected to promote the reforestation of plains totaling 60,000 ha within the first 8 yr in Taiwan. Annual subsidies for landlords, is NT$120,000 (US$ 4,000) per hectare, and NT$2.4 million for 20 yr. In this paper, we surveyed landlords' opinions towards the GFP in an attempt to understand their incentives to participate in the GFP and their levels of concern and agreement towards the policy design. According to the results of this paper, there was still a relatively high proportion of respondents who were not aware of the GFP; more than 50% of landlords were neutral or willing to participate given high reforestation subsidies; approximately 30% of landlords were unwilling to participate. In terms of the period of this policy, 52.7% of respondents indicated that it should be shortened to ≦ 15 yr. In terms of the amount of the subsidy, 41.7% of respondents said that it should be raised to approximately NT$250,000/ha. Some policy suggestions are provided as follows: (1) many landlords are still unaware of the GFP so the government should enhance the promotion of the policy; (2) many landlords are unwilling to participate in GFP mainly because they do not own enough land to be eligible, hence the government should consider adjusting its requirements for the minimum agricultural land area; (3) for subsequent promotions of the GFP, the government may consider targeting landlords with high incomes and high levels of education; and (4) because the subsidy of this policy alone provides limited help to landlords, the government should help landlords explore other revenue possibilities from afforestation in addition to the existing subsidies and raise the participation incentives.