PERSIST · What makes change last? Evaluating the multidimensional drivers of persistent agroforestry adoption.

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payments to encourage sustainable land management, yet too often fail to ensure that practices continue when support is withdrawn.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.