An Improved GM(1,1) Model of Marketization of Forest Ecological Compensation based on Health-Cultivation Industry

In the context of supply-side structual reform, the marketization of forest ecological compensation is an inevitable requirement under the market economy. The forest health-cultivation industry, which explores the new method to utilize the forestry resources, is a new direction of forestry firms and is the production of supply-side structural reform. From the perspective of forest health-cultivation industry, this essay explores the possibility of the marketization of forest ecological compensation based on forest health-cultivation industry, and predicts the willingness of people to pay for the ecological service by using the original number of tourists in forestry tourism and leisure industry tourism between 2010 and 2015 and adopting the improved GM (1,1) model. The result shows that people’s willingness is increasing. It is predicted that, by 2023, the number of tourists in forestry tourism and leisure industry tourism will reach 8.98 billion. The development of forest health-cultivation industry has introduced the market mechanism for forestry development, which makes up for the deficiency of the existing compensation mechanism characterized by low compensation standards and single channel of funding. The increase of people’s demand for ecological tourism and the boom of forest health-cultivation industry which provide a new opportunity for the marketization and diversification of forest ecological compensation mechanism.

Research and application of GEP------China's experience in natural capital accounting---a review

Under the background of global climate change and the human activities, the stock of natural capital and the the ability of ecosystem services are facing increasing pressure, and the contradiction between natural capital protection and people’s livelihood development is also increasing. Therefore, it is urgent to integrate ecosystem value estimation into the development decision-making of countries all over the world. As a new ecosystem research method, ecosystem gross product (GEP) accounting is widely used in China, and often used to reflect the effectiveness of regional ecological protection and the coordination relationship between development and protection. We found that : (1) GEP accounting can reflect the overall situation of ecological environment and service quality, and help decision-makers and managers formulate and implement sustainable development strategies and ecological protection policies. (2) The contradiction between the depletion of global ecosystem capital and the development of people’s livelihood continues to intensify. About 68.7% of developing countries facing “low-low development model” (low GEP and low GDP). (3) We have constructed the path model of GEP working system and the path model of ecological protection compensation mechanism in China. The GEP accounting system of “from point to area, from top to bottom”, the parallel evaluation strategy of GDP and GEP and the comprehensive ecological compensation system of “vertical and horizontal combination” implemented can be popularized to countries all over the world.

The Performance Evaluation of State Grassland Ecological Compensation and Rewards—A Case Study in Yili, Xinjiang, China

Since 2011, the State Grassland Ecological Compensation and Rewards(GECR) had implemented in 13 provinces (regions) in China. This policy controlled livestock carrying capacity on pasture and provided subsidies to pastoralists, aimed at reducing livestock number on grassland, increasing income of pastoralist households, and restoring degraded grassland ecosystem. Taking Nileke County of Xinjiang, China as a case study, this research evaluated the ecological, economic and social performance of GECR in agro-pastoral area. Using annual series data during 2006-2010 and 2011-2015, the change of grassland ecological condition, household living standard and labor population was compared between the two periods, and the influence of GECR were validated and detailed with semi-structured household interviews. The results showed that after 2011, livestock number in pastoral area decreased. In contract, the livestock in agricultural area showed large growth. Farmers’ livestock use pasture through grazing transaction, which means farmers paid herders to graze their livestock on the herder’s pasture. Widespread transactions between farmers and herders led to overgrazing on pasture and grassland degradation. GECR also had no significant contribution on improving household income and encouraging livelihood transition. The policy had no significant benefits in ecology, economy and society in case area. Based on the findings, we put forwards suggestions from three aspects: improving the design of the GECR policy, establishing performance evaluation system, strengthening the supervision and punishment of grassland overgrazing and improving local human capital quality .

The Impact of China’s Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy on the Income Gap between Herder Households? A Case Study from a Typical Pilot Area

China’s policy of subsidies and rewards for grassland ecological protection (PSRGEP) aims to maintain the ecological function of grasslands and increase the income of herder households. Since 2011, the Chinese government has invested more than 150 billion yuan in this policy, making it currently the largest grassland ecological compensation project in China. Based on a survey of 203 herder households in Xin Barag Left Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, this study used the Lorenz curve and Gini index to describe the imbalance in the distribution of compensation funds. Then, the integrated livelihood capital scores before compensation were used as a baseline. The changes in ranking and standard deviation of the scores after receiving compensation funds were analysed to draw a conclusion about the impact on the income gap between herder households. Finally, we described the absolute income gap through a group comparison. The results show that the distribution of compensation funds is unbalanced (Gini index is 0.46). According to the order of compensation funds from high to low, the top 20% of sample herder households received 49% of the total funds. Given the unbalanced distribution, households with better family economic conditions received more compensation funds. After receiving the compensation funds, the change in the ranking of the household’s livelihood capital integrated score was small, but the standard deviation increased from 0.1697 to 0.1734, and the Gini index of the households’ capital integrated scores decreased from 0.35 to 0.34 (the coefficient of variation decreased from 0.66 to 0.63). The group with the highest integrated livelihood capital score received 3.6 times the compensation funds of the group with the lowest score. As a result, under the promotion of PSRGEP, the local absolute income gap has widened, but the relative income gap has reduced. This study evaluated the current distribution of compensation funds for PSRGEP, which could provide a scientific basis for managers to optimize the fund distribution in the future.

Estimation of the Rational Range of Ecological Compensation to Address Land Degradation in the Poverty Belt around Beijing and Tianjin, China

Ecological compensation provides innovative ecological solutions for addressing land degradation and guaranteeing the sustainable provision of essential ecosystem services. This study estimated the ecosystem service value and the opportunity cost of land use in the Poverty Belt of China—around Beijing and Tianjin—from 1980 to 2015 on the small watershed scale, and thereafter estimated the rational range of ecological compensation in this ecologically fragile zone. Results showed that the total ecosystem service value in the study area gradually decreased from CNY 54.198 billion in 1980 to CNY 53.912 billion in 2015. Moreover, the annual total ecological compensation of the whole study area ranged between CNY 2.67 billion and 2.83 billion. More specifically, areas with higher ecological compensation standards are mainly concentrated in the northwestern and northern parts of the study area, with a lower economic development level, while areas with lower ecological compensation standards are mainly located in areas with a relatively high level of economic development, e.g., the southern and southeastern parts of the study area. These results can provide valuable decision-support information for the design and optimization of ecological compensation to address land degradation along with rapid urbanization in the Beijing–Tianjin–Hebei region.

Analysis on Decision-Making Changes of Multilevel Governments and Influencing Factors in Watershed Ecological Compensation

Watershed ecological compensation has been widely accepted as a system to promote the cooperation of various stakeholders to solve the problem of transboundary water pollution, but the existing research does not fully consider the impact of compensation fee paid by different governments on stakeholders’ decision-making. Therefore, this paper constructs a tripartite game model between upstream governments, downstream governments, and the central government by using evolutionary game theory and determines the influence of different factors on the decision-making process of each player through simulation. The results show the following: (1) the initial probability significantly affects the decision-making behavior of each player; (2) daily supervision of the central government and the reduction of the environmental protection cost can promote the implementation of watershed ecological compensation; (3) the fine to downstream governments makes the decisions of the central government and downstream governments change periodically; and (4) the increase of ecological compensation fee urges downstream governments to choose noncompensation, and compensation fee paid by the central government has a critical value.