How does less public spending affect the motivation of citizens to contribute to nature conservation?

Contributions to public goods, such as nature areas, are often made by private actors, as well as governmental agencies. Typically, the motivation of citizens to voluntarily contribute depends on how the distribution of such tasks has evolved between public and private actors, and wider contextual factors. Therefore, it is unclear whether decreased public spending on nature areas affects private funding. We conduct an economic experiment in The Hague Forest in the Netherlands and ask citizens to perform a task that generates funding for the forest. In the treatment condition, we describe the ongoing policy changes, which implies less state funding and greater dependency on private actors. We find that highlighting a greater need for private funding reduces individual contributions significantly, which is mostly due to a drop in motivation of frequent visitors. Overall, our study suggests that decreasing public spending may have unexpected repercussions on citizens’ motivation to contribute.