Determinants of Sustainability in Satoyama Conservation: Evidence from a Social Network Analysis in Chiba Prefecture, Japan

This study investigates the determinants of sustainability in community-based environmental initiatives by analyzing 88 cases of Satoyama Conservation Agreements in Chiba Prefecture, Japan. Combining survival analysis with social network metrics, we assess the effects of financial subsidies and participation in regional support networks on the duration of conservation activities. The findings reveal that while financial support alone has limited influence, involvement in horizontally-structured support networks is significantly associated with longer agreement duration. Centrality within the network also appears to positively affect persistence. The study contributes to the literature on environmental governance and evidence-based policy making (EBPM) by demonstrating that non-financial, network-oriented interventions can play a critical role in policy effectiveness. It further proposes an integrated theoretical framework that reconceptualizes networks as infrastructures generating legitimacy, trust, and visibility—crucial elements for sustaining collective action. These insights have broad applicability for designing resilient, context-sensitive environmental policies across decentralized and peri-urban settings. Journal of Economic Literature classification numbers; Q57, Q23, D85