| The grassland ecosystem provides the material basis for the survival and development of herdsmen;it combines multiple functions into one,which not only provides economic functions such as providing basic production and living materials for herders,but also plays a social role in ensuring the livelihood and endowment of pastoral households,the inheritance and development of grassland culture,and eco-tourism,also have ecological functions such as biodiversity conservation,soil and water conservation,wind protection and sand fixation.However,with the acceleration of industrialization and urbanization,the available grassland area is shrinking,and the grassland ecosystem is facing a severe test.As the grassland ecological environment deteriorates,the grassland ecosystem services will change,which will profoundly affect the living conditions and even the welfare level of human society.Since 2011,China has begun to implement the subsidy and compensation mechanism for grassland ecological protection,it is not only related to the maintenance of grassland ecological balance and the sustainable development of grassland ecological resources,but also has great significance for realizing grassland greening,increasing income of herdsmen and increasing efficiency of animal husbandry in Inner Mongolia pastoral areas.The current research focuses on the grassland ecological compensation mechanism itself which include compensation subject,compensation method,compensation standard and basis,the ecological,economic and social benefits evaluation of grassland ecological compensation,and the impact on the welfare of herdsmen after the award is less common.In fact,due to the limited use of grassland after the grassland ecological supplement,objectively,it changes the organizational production and family income of the herdsmen,education and development opportunities,social security,physical conditions,etc.,subjectively,the pastoral exchanges and environmental assessment,social equity and psychological feelings of the herdsmen have changed,and these changes will further affect the welfare level of the herdsmen.Then,what is the difference in the welfare status of the herdsmen and the welfare between the herdsmen?What factors are affected by it?This paper is mainly divided into five parts,and the structure and the main conclusions are as follows:1.The paper makes an empirical analysis in order to examine the welfare influence factors of the herdsmen's willingness to participate in the grassland ecological award.The multi-ordered Logistic model was used to do a comparative analysis for the willingness and attitude of different types of sample herdsmen on the grassland ecological compensation mechanism.According to the existing theoretical research results,the influencing factors index system of the herdsmen's grassland ecological compensation willingness is constructed,which mainly includes four aspects:the basic characteristics of the herdsmen's family,psychological feelings,family welfare characteristics and geographical location characteristics.The paper conducts an empirical study on the influencing factors of the willingness for the herdsmen including sample herdsmen,grazing-type herdsmen and grass-animal balance herdsmen under the grassland ecological compensation mechanism.The study results show that among the three types of sample herder household models,there are three indicators includ:ing the proportion of pastoral labor,the per capita disposable income of the family,and the dependence of the herdsmen on the pasture,which have a significant impact on the willingness of the herdsmen to participate.2.Although the absolute level of pastoral welfare has improved after the grassland ecological compensation mechanism,the overall welfare is still not high.Based on Amartya Sen's capability approach,starting from the functional activities of the herdsmen's family,this paper constructs a theoretical model and evaluation index system in order to examine the impact of grassland ecological compensation mechanism on the welfare of herdsmen.The theoretical framework on the measurement of herdsmen's family welfare covers six dimensions of organizational production and household income,education and development opportunities,social security,leisure communication and environmental assessment,social equity,physical condition and psychological feeling,and the framework including 20 impact factors simultaneously.Fuzzy comprehensive evaluation methods were used to measure the absolute level of the overall herdsmen's welfare before and after the implementation of the grassland ecological compensation mechanism.The article uses the sample data of 449 herdsmen in Inner Mongolia to conduct an empirical analysis.The results show that the total welfare value before the grassland ecological supplement is 0.438,and the total welfare value after the grassland ecological supplement is 0.455,the welfare change is positive.In general,the change in overall welfare level of herdsmen before and after the grassland ecological supplement is not obvious,and the overall welfare change is only 0.017,indicating that the contribution of the grassland ecological compensation mechanism to the improvement of herdsmen's welfare is not outstanding.The overall welfare of the herdsmen is still not high and at a moderate low level after the compensation mechanism,and there is still some space for improvement in the welfare of the herdsmen under the grassland ecological compensation mechanism.3.The relative differences of herdsmen's welfare before and after the grassland ecological compensation mechanism tend to intensify.On the one hand,it is about the measurement of the difference in the overall welfare of herdsmen before and after the subsidy.First,it can be seen from the distribution of membership for functional activities of welfare,the total welfare index of herdsmen shows "quasi-normal distribution" trend of "large in the middle and small at both ends".Then,under the influence of different heterogeneity factors,the paper makes an extended analysis on the difference of the reward herdsmen's the overall welfare.The results showed that the grass-animal balanced sample herders had higher welfare levels than the grazing-type sample herdsmen;The higher the education level,the greater the livelihood diversity index,the larger the average grassland area and the higher the level of economic development,the better the welfare status of the herdsmen.On the other hand,based on the Lorenz curve and the welfare Gini coefficient,the paper measures the difference in the distribution of herdsmen's internal welfare before and after the grassland ecological supplement,the empirical analysis shows that the gap in welfare distribution between the herdsmen is expanding after the award.4.The grassland ecological compensation mechanism has a significant impact on the welfare of herdsmen.In this paper,OLS regression and quantile regression are used to examine the factors that influence the welfare changes of sample herdsmen under the grassland ecological compensation mechanism.Among them,in order to investigate the impact of grassland ecological compensation mechanism on the welfare of herdsmen,the explanatory variables selected in this study include two variables,namely,the amount of capital of grassland ecological compensation award,and the satisfaction of herdsmen with the compensation mechanism,and there are also control variables that reflect the basic characteristics of the family and the regional economic characteristics in the model.The empirical results show that both of the explanatory variables have a significant positive impact on the welfare changes of the award herdsmen.5.Construct a policy and institutional framework for improving the welfare of herdsmen and narrowing the welfare gap under the background of grassland ecological compensation mechanism.Based on the conclusions,the paper makes following policy recommendations,including appropriately improving the standard of awards and gradually establishing a dynamic adjustment mechanism for the standard of awards;improving the participation mechanism of herdsmen and increasing their willingness to participate in the supplementary awards;considering fairness and efficiency in the process of improving welfare,the way of welfare improvement should be reasonable and appropriate;changing the top-down supply decision-making mechanism from a single-center supply system to a multi-center supply system;improving the livelihood capital of pastoral households to achieve the sustainability of livelihoods,which will facilitate the adjustment of stakeholders' benefit relationship including the government,help to maximize the welfare of pastoralists in pastoral areas,and it also play a key role in the smooth implementation of the grassland ecological reward mechanism in Inner Mongolia pastoral areas,improvement in the life and welfare of herders,and the overall revitalization of society. |
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