Study On The National Ecological Compensation System Of China

Lack of eco-compensation system is an important reason for ecological degradation in our country. To solve the problem in eco-conservation, the establishment of eco-compensation system and finalization of the relevant rules thereof must be undertaken.Eco-compensation mechanism is to adjust the relations between stakeholders with regard to the distribution of their environmental interests and economic benefits. It is a system to internalize the external cost incurred by relevant activities. The mechanism in our country mainly focuses on ecological environmental protection and is characterized by its regionality, wide involvement of responsible entities and eco-conservation oriented.The national eco-compensation is done through the direct or indirect participation of the central government and to provide compensation to the certain social economic activities that are facing the ecological impact of trans-boundary of provinces or countries. In line with the common characteristics of the different compensating elements, the operational mechanism can be classified as government, market and mixed scheme for compensation. The mixed mechanism is to mix the compensation of the governments and markets. The most common mixed mechanism is to trade the compensation among the governments: the compensation is realized through trade and negotiation between the governments and the due payment comes from the governmental budget. The mixed compensation is an important mechanism that is compatible to the practical situation of our country.The eco-compensation system in our country covers three main parts: eco-functioning area, river basin catchments, and natural resources exploitation. Different part corresponds to different mechanism. The governmental compensation dominates the activities in eco-functioning area, which ends up with the establishment of the compensation system guided by the central government and participated by the local governments and social communities. As for river basin catchments, the mixed mechanism prevails, which will set up the scheme driven by the local governments and coordinated by the central government. Resources exploitation mainly relies on the market mechanism and will be completed with the setup of enterprises led, consumers responsible and government supervised system. The establishment of the eco-compensation system in our country should be phased in by two stages: completion of the compensation system for eco-functioning areas and forceful promotion for its formulation in the fields of river basin catchments and resources exploitation by the year 2010; finalization of the mechanism by the year 2015.To expedite the process, our country should give priority to north western part of China and focus her effort mainly in the three aspects: to further finalize the governmental compensation mechanism; to push strongly the market mechanism and to strengthen the basic work.