Wildlife Damage Compensation Mechanism Based On Conservation Of Asian Elephants In China

With the growing population, constant loss of wildlif's habitat, changes in land utilization and the implementation effectiveness of wildlife protection measures, the contradiction between wildlife and humans for living space have been escalating continuously. The direct manifestation of this contradiction is the human-wildlife conflict, and the result of which is the damage caused by wildlife for humans. The damage caused by wildlife leads to not only physical injuries and property losses to local residents, but also the animosity and rejection feeling of local people to the wildlife, it is extremely detrimental to the wildlife conservation. How to ease human-wildlife conflict is a challenge for the researchers and administrators.The implementation of effective protection strategy is inseparable from the attitudes of the local people. In order to alleviate the conflict between local people and wildlife and get support of wildlife conservation from local people, most countries'governments established compensation system to compensate for the lost of the local residents. Overall, the effect of compensation system on easing human-wildlife conflict was well acknowledged by many scholars, especially on mitigating the discontent with wildlife. A scientific and thorough wildlife damage compensation mechanism has not been set up in China. In this paper, taking wildlife nature reserve and the surrounding areas suffering wildlife damage as a research platform and Asian elephant, a national key protected flagship species, as a breakthrough of reserch, it established a wildlife damage compensation mechanism by considering multiple correlation factors through the scientific evaluation of the wildlife damage impact to the community residents, the tolerance of community residents to wildlife damage, and the expectations of community residents to damage compensation measures.This paper includes three aspects of content which are theory research, application research and policy research.Theory research:The concept and scope of certain terms, including wildlife, wildlife conservation, damage and compensation, related to this research were defined; The theoretical basis for wildlife damage compensation was analyzed from different theoretical angles including eco-compensation, wildlife value, externality and public goods.The framework of wildlife damage compensation mechanism for China was established, the various inscapes of wildlife damage compensation mechanism, including compensation subject, compensation methods, compensation means, compensation measure, compensation standard and process of compensation, were analyzed in detail.Application research: Through the on-the-spot investigation of the present living situation of Asian elephant, protection and management measures, current situation of damage caused by Asian elephant and compensation in China, it was concluded that the number of Asian elephant in China is less than250, which is very rare; Kinds of ways and means for Asian elephant protection made some achievements in China; Meanwhile, the damage caused by the Asian elephants was enormous, the harm of the local residents property and personal safety lead to an increasingly fierce human-elephant conflict. According to the existing problems, some specific suggestions were proposed.By using contingent value method (CVM), and from the point of view of the willingness to accept compensation of the residents coming from the conservation, we analyzed the cognition of the local residents to the damage caused by Asian elephant, their attitudes towards the Asian elephant conservation, the expectation of compensation and willingness to accept the compensation for damage. The results showed that Asian elephants caused damage was severe and30.04%of the local residents were against the Asian elephant protection; The main reasons against Asian elephant protection were incomes reduced by Asian elephant damages and insufficient damage compensation; If the compensation was satisfied,80.26%of the residents who was against the protection will change attitudes to support the Asian elephant protection; The respondents expected damage compensation by national level; By establishing multiple linear regression model of willingness to compensation, the willingness to compensation was positively correlated with the number of the household members and the damage level, and was negatively correlated with the living condition and number of rubber trees; Willingness to compensation of different living conditions were calculated, which were1337.30yuan/person for residents living in the nature reserve,1129.20yuan/person for residents living in the edge area of the reserve, and921.11yuan/person for those living outside of the reserve.Using contingent valuation method (CVM), and by willingness to pay (WTP), we analyzed the willingness to pay for Asian elephant protection and Asian elephant damage compensation to the urban residents, and the attitude towards payment and its related factors. Research showed that55%of the respondents are willing to pay a certain funds for elephant protection, which was calculated was9.81yuan/person in a year. The overall WTP for protection in Yunnan Province was1.056×10yuan/a; The average WTP for damage compensation was2.30yuan/person in a year. The total WTP for damage compensation in Yunnan Province was2.47×107yuan/a.By establishing multiple linear regression model of WTP, the WTP for Asian elephants protection was positively correlated with the respondents' understanding level to Asian elephant, income condition and attitude towards pay; The factors affecting pay attitude were tested by Logit and Probit model. It was found that pay attitude was influenced by income condition, understanding level of Asian elephant, and education level of the respondents and has positive correlation, which was same as expectation. Of all three factors, the understanding level of Asian elephant had the greatest influence on pay attitude.Policy research:In this paper, countermeasures for establishment and implementation of wildlife damage compensation mechanism in China were proposed from nine aspects, which are to improve laws and regulations, establish diversifying compensation subjects, realize the measurement for ecological compensation, consider the willingness to pay of all stakeholders, implement a variety of compensation methods, set up parallel compensation means of government and market, develop a supervision system for the compensation funds, establish insurance mechanism, and develop the community co-management.