Are punishments or rewards more effective in encouraging people to protect nature?

Personally, I feel rewards work better than punishments for environmental protection, because people respond better to positive encouragement. In Shanghai, we have this green point system where you earn credits for recycling - I've seen neighbors actually compete to collect more bottles now. That said, fines still have their place for serious violations like illegal dumping. But small incentives create this ripple effect where people start caring beyond just the reward. Like the tree planting movement I mentioned earlier - it shows how small positive actions can grow into bigger change.