| Since the China's reform and opening to the outside world, China's economy has achieved a fast and continuous development. While at the same time, because of the exploration and exploitation of the extensive economy, the consumption of natural resources has been increased by a large margin, among which the shortage of water resources becomes one of the most serious problems. Though our government has issued a series of relative policies to protect the ecological environment of the water source area and has achieved certain success. Though the ecological resources environment received well preservation, the economic development of the water source area sank into great dilemma at the same time. The nation's promulgation of those policies restricting the industrial development of the water source area not only bought about severe restrictions and impacts to the current industries in the water source area, but also imposed huge opportunity cost on the economic development of the water source area. Therefore, it is imperative to carry out necessary compensation for the ecological protection in the water source area.Based on the special ecological status of water source area and its current characteristics, the ecological compensation of the water source area should follow the principles of fairness, beneficiaries compensation, ecological safety,"he who protects should benefit, he who benefits should compensate,"and principle of agility. The adoption of proper ways to carry out reasonable compensation for the direct investment and for the loss of opportunities in the ecological protection in the water source area can effectively encourage the ecological behavior in the water source area. The ecological compensation mechanism in water source area is a synthesis of the interests motivated mechanism, incisive mechanism and coordination mechanism which can promote water resources protection. It aims to mobilize the initiative of the ecological construction and the protectors in the water source area through employment of economic means, means of policies, legal means, and through the internalization of the externality of the ecological protection in the water source area. There are three essential problems to be solved in order to construct the ecological compensation mechanism of the water source area. The first is who should compensate whom, that is, the definition of the compensation subjects. The second is how much should be compensated, that is the formulation of compensation standards. The third is how to compensate, that is, the ways of compensation.As far as water resources are concerned, the ecological beneficiaries can be divided into two catalogues: first, the ecological beneficiaries that can be clearly defined, such as the water resources used for production in agriculture, industry and the tertiary industries, and the business-use water utilized in electricity generation, water tourism and transportation. Second, the ecological beneficiaries that cannot be clearly defined, such as the water resources used for ecological protection. The ecological compensation objects in the water source area include both ecological protectors and those who would reduce the detriments to environments. The compensating part and the compensated part are always two conflicting sides of one contradiction. The process of ecological compensation in water source area is in fact a game process between the ecological protectors and beneficiaries. Within such game, if it is a once-off game for the two parts, its Nash Equilibrium is no protection for the water source area, and no compensation from the beneficiaries in the lower part of the river. However, seen through the analysis of the infinite recurrent game, if the participator has enough patience, (protection, compensation) would be the Nash Equilibrium for each stage of gaming. The two parts will walk out the"prisoner dilemma"of the once-off game and the welfare of the people both in the water source area and the lower part of the river can be improved.The calculation of the ecological compensation standards mainly adopts the methods of WTP, OC and Marginal Cost Pricing of Pollution Disposition. Based on the questionnaire conducted among the residents of Shandong Province in the Yellow River basin and making use of CVM, an analysis was carried out on the compensation willingness and payment level of the residents in the basin. The result shows that among the 240 valid questionnaires, the annual payment level per capita amounts to $116.71. As it can be seen from Logit and linear regression model, the residents'level of education and income has assumed a positive correlation with their ecological compensation willingness and payment level. While age has a weak correlation with ecological compensation willingness. As far as the ecological compensation willingness is concerned, female compensation willingness is stronger than that of the male.Ecological compensation in the water source area usually adopts the mode of government compensation or market compensation. The government tries to raise funds through fiscal transfer payment, the establishment of special ecological compensation funds, levying ecological compensation taxes in water source area, providing preferential credit policies, etc. At the same time, the government tries to provide ecological compensation in water source area by adopting ways of compensation through policies, compensation funds, compensation in kind, intellectual compensation and the ways of ecological migration, exploration in other places, etc. However, government compensation has the disadvantages of the lack of effective supervision and restraints on the operation of funds and lack of well-defined power and responsibility between different departments. All these disadvantages provide opportunities for the development of market compensation. Market compensation is the direct compensation given by the beneficiaries of the ecological protection of water source area to the protectors. The protectors and beneficiaries of water source area ecology can establish a kind face-to-face relationship through ways of property transaction and one to one transaction. Each stakeholder enjoys their rights and assumes correspondent responsibilities through market mechanism. Thus they can realize their own interests appeal. However, Market compensation also has its own disadvantages, such as the difficulties in carrying out due compensation, the severity of the short-term compensation behavior, etc. Considering the different advantages and disadvantages of government compensation and market compensation, the operation mechanism of the ecological compensation of the water source area should insist on the leading role of the government. At the same time it should further improve the ecological compensation system of production-used water in water source area by giving full play to the role of market.The ecological compensation mechanism of the water source area in our country starts fairly late, which leads to the lack of perfect relative laws and regulations, the low standards of ecological compensation of the water source area, the limitation of the channels to obtain ecological compensation funds in the water source area, the lack of effective supervision and restraints on the operation of funds, the lack of smooth cooperation mechanism. All these problems further hinder the improvement of ecological compensation mechanism in the water source area in China. Ecological compensation mechanism is a complicated and comprehensive system. In the process of the designing and improvement of ecological compensation mechanism, we should attach special importance on its internal relationship with economic, managerial, legal and social policies and try to achieve good combination between ecological compensation mechanism and the supporting policies. Based on the following principles of fairness and justness, sustainable development, progress in an orderly way and step by step, he who benefits should compensate, we should construct integrate ecological compensation guarantee system in the water source area though the improvement of the legal guarantee mechanism in water source area, economic mechanism, funds operation mechanism, and through the construction of social mechanism. |
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