The Study On The Grassland Eco-compensation Standard Setting,Optimization And Ensuring Mechanism

As the largest ecosystem on land in China,the grasslands provide ecological services which have the characteristics of public products or quasi-public products.It is generally difficult to measure the intrinsic value through the market mechanism.Ecological compensation is an important environmental economic policy for the conservation of natural resources,the construction of ecological civilization,and the sustainable development of natural resources.In order to protect the grassland ecological environment and realize the sustainable use of grassland resources,China has established a grassland ecological compensation mechanism.The grassland ecological compensation mechanism compensates herdsmen living in pastoral areas through projects or policies.Although the implementation of the grassland ecological compensation mechanism in China has achieved Significant results,the situation of “partial improvement and overall deterioration” of the grassland ecological environment has still not been fundamentally changed.In April 2016,the General Office of the State Council issued the “Opinions on Perfecting Ecological Protection Compensation Mechanism”,stating clearly that although the ecological protection compensation mechanism has made some achievements,the scope of ecological protection compensation is still small,the standards are low,and the mechanism of interaction is not yet perfect,which has affected the effectiveness of the measures for the protection of ecological environment to some extent.In addition,Chinese scholars have analyzed the problems faced in the implementation of grassland ecological compensation mechanisms from different perspectives,and pointed out that the current compensation standards are low and it is difficult to make up for the opportunity cost of herdsman's protection of the grassland ecological environment.The development of reasonable compensation standards is the crucial basis to solve theses problems.Therefore,the core issue of the grassland ecological compensation mechanism is the determination of the compensation standard.This paper uses the Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region as an example to research of the determination of the compensation standard.Firstly,this paper reviews the relative research results at China and abroad and analyzes the current situation of implementation of the Inner Mongolia grassland ecological compensation mechanism.Secondly,according to the natural resources value theory,the theory of externalizations of public goods,cost and benefit theory,game theory and incentive theory,this paper qualitatively analyzed the compensation standards from the perspective of different compensation subjects.Then based on a large number of field survey data in the east,central and west regions of Inner Mongolia,taking the grassland ecological protection subsidy incentive policy as the research object,this paper quantitatively calculate the grassland-animal balance award standard and grazing prohibition subsidy standard of the Inner Mongolia grassland subsidy policy.Based on this,taking into account the differences in geographical endowments of different regions and the impact of natural and market risks on the opportunity cost of the herdsmen participating in the policy,we propose to establish a differential and dynamic compensation standard optimization pattern,and construct periodic compensation standards according to the restoration cycle of grassland.Finally,from the three aspects of compensation subject,compensation method,and supervision and management,this paper suggest establishing the relevant safeguard mechanism to ensure the effective implementation of compensation standards.Integrating the above analysis,the main contents and corresponding research conclusions of this study are as follows:(1)Through the analysis of status quo of returning grazing land to grassland project and compensation and rewards policy for grassland protection(CRPGP)in Inner Mongolia,it can be concluded that: as to ecological benefits,grassland ecological environment of Inner Mongolia has been improved significantly,the grassland area of desertification,salinization and degradation has been reduced by 0.4475 m ha compared with it in 2010;the coverage of vegetation has been enhanced by 12.75 per cent,and production of grass has also been increased by 464.7 kg per ha in grassland project area relative to non-project area.In terms of the policy impact on herders' income structure,firstly,this research identified the real participants of CRPGP(herders without overgrazing)from 511 herder respondents.Hence we established a propensity score-matching model to empirically test the effect of grassland ecological compensation policy on household income.The results show that the grassland ecological compensation policy has a significant effect on increasing the total income of non-overloaded herders and non-animal husbandry income.The increase in income was 49.3% and 142.8% if they are involved in the policy situation,but the increase in livestock income was not significant.The effect of the grassland ecological compensation policy on the income of the herdsmen is to indirectly increase the total income of the herdsmen through the increase of non-animal husbandry income,and it is not the policy that directly affects the herdsman's income from animal husbandry.(2)Using a total amount of 178 herdsman's sample data from the east,central and west regions of Inner Mongolia who involved in the grassland-livestock balance system,this paper adopt an opportunity-cost approach to collect and distribute of livestock husbandry farming costs.The results show that the opportunity cost of the overloaded herdsman's reduction of livestock is determined by the herdsman's stock of livestock,the slaughter rate,the average income of each sheep unit,and the variable cost of each sheep unit.On this basis,it is calculated that the overloaded herdsmen should obtain CNY13.15 per mu for subsidy;the non-overloaded herdsmen do not need to reduce their livestock when implementing the grass-animal balance system.At this time,the herdsmen should be rewarded for maintaining the animal husbandry business pattern.The herdsmen who are not overloaded should obtain CNY3.37 per mu for subsidy.(3)Inner Mongolia owns various types of grassland,what the quantity of ecological service provided by different types of grassland is distinguished obviously.Hence we selected 175 herder households from steppe grassland,typical grassland and desert grassland respectively.Then,this research uses the gas regulation function and water conservation function represent ecological service volume,adopting MATLAB software to simulate the relationship between the increases in ecological service volume and compensation standards.According to the simulation results,when the ecological service provided by the grazing-prohibited grassland almost reached the target ecological service volume,the compensation standard at this time is the best grazing prohibition compensation standard.If the compensation given to the herd households is CNY86.58 per mu,there will be 99.8% of herdsmen would like to perform the policy of grazing prohibition.(4)The sole eco-compensation payment could cause unfairness,and also could lead to the non-compliance of grassland policy and reduce their enthusiasm.As a result,constructing the optimized model of different,dynamic,and stage ecological compensation standards can effectively improve the implementation effect of the compensation mechanism.Differential compensation standards are determined based on different metrics from the level of the autonomous regions government and local county governments.The dynamic compensation standard is set by establishing a real option binary tree model,dynamically simulating the changes in mutton prices,when the price falls,the herdsmen will reduce the amount of livestock slaughter in the short term,which will correspondingly increase the pressure on the grasslands.At this time,the grassland compensation criteria should be dynamically adjusted to give herdsmen certain livestock subsidies and encourage herdsmen to active reduction of livestock.According to the restoration cycle of grassland ecological environment,Stage-based compensation standards divide the implementation period of grassland ecological compensation into three different stages: initial period,transitional period and target period.Analyzing the herdsman's incentive objectives based on the incentive theory to determine the corresponding compensation standards.Taking the grazing prohibition standard in Inner Mongolia as an example,through calculation,the implementation of phased compensation standards for herdsmen in grazing areas which not only greatly improves the efficiency of the use of funds,but also ensures the effective implementation of the compensation mechanism.(5)To implement the eco-compensation payment of grassland needs to thorough security mechanism.This research conducted a deep analysis of payment subject,adoption of payment vehicle and monitoring mechanism.It concluded that: the diverse payment subject should be involved with three forms: government-oriented subject,enterprise and citizen intervention,and herders' voluntary type.These three forms are showing a progressive relationship,along with the pushing of mechanism for grassland ecological compensation.With regard to the selection of payment vehicle,this research set by multivariate ordinal logistic models to empirically demonstrate that the factors affecting herders' satisfaction with CRPGP in steppe grassland,typical grassland and desert grassland,from the perspective of herders' choice.Also,suitable eco-compensation payment vehicle for different types of grassland could be put forward on the basis of empirical results.Government should provide allowances of heating house and grass cutting machine for herders and enhance the compensation level on the basis of reasonably theoretical stocking rate in steppe grassland.Then,training of drylot feeding technology,price allowance for fodder and forage,and loan polices are supposed to be provided for herders as well in typical grassland.For herders living in desert grassland,government needs to strengthen the publicity of compensation and rewards policy for grassland protection,as well as host more training regarding vocational skills,apart from loan policies and increased compensation level.Eventually,during to establishing an effective supervision mechanism,a scientific management mechanism,and a comprehensive performance appraisal mechanism to improve the supervision and management mechanism of grassland ecological compensation.