The Study Of The Sustainability Of National Desertified Land Sealed Protection Policy

Sandification and desertification of the land in arid areas is one of the severe types of ecological degradation facing human society.Around 1/4 of the world's land is under the threat from desertification,and the livelihood of more than 1 billion people from over 100 countries are affected by desertification,which spreads at the rate of 60,000 km~2/a.In China,deserts,the Gobi Desert and desertification lands occupy 45.13%of the total national territorial area,and there are different levels of desertification in 18 provinces,cities and municipalities and 528 counties.Desertification control has always been a core part of China's ecological construction layout.To prevent and control desertification and govern already-formed desertification land,in 2013,the central government issued the national desertified land sealed protection policy(the policy for short)and implemented it in pilot areas,Desertified areas that near deserts are seriously destroyed by human,experience intensified desertification,have an important ecological position,and should be governed but do not possess governance conditions at present are classified into several sealed conservation areas of desertified lands.Measures including fencing four boundaries of the protected areas,eco-migration,banning grazing,cultivating,logging,woodcutting and hunting should be taken to protect desert vegetation and promote natural recovery of desert vegetation,for the purpose of containing the expansion of sandification and maintaining ecological security.At the pilot phase,tentative duration of the national sealed protection of the desertified area is 7 years.By the end of 2017,the first and second batches of pilot counties have entered the“last phase”of sealed protection period.At this time,conducting an in-depth evaluation of the overall performance of the national policy and discussing the sustainability of the policy theoretically are of important referential significance for the practice of national desertified land control.This article takes the counties that implement the policy in Hexi Corridor,Gansu province,as the sample areas,conducts a quantitative analysis and evaluation of the sustainability of the policy itself and its implementation based on micro-data on the sample areas,and hence estimates scientific standards about compensations for enclosure carried out in the sealed desertified areas from the perspective of the improvement of the policy sustainability.Main conclusions are as follows:As for the sustainability of the policy,this study evaluates the sustainability of the policy itself from two perspectives—ecological performance and economic performance:First,the ecological safety evaluation index calculated by normalized differential vegetation index(NDVI),land cover change and soil erosion intensity together is used to represent the efficiency of ecological management of sealed desertified areas,then GIS technology is employed to figure out ecological security indexes of the sample areas and compare the indexes before and after enclosure,and the changes in the indexes are used to evaluate ecological performance of the policy.The study shows that since sealed protection measures were taken four years ago,the value of the ecological security of sealed desertified areas dropped by 17.68%in comparison with that before enclosure,ecological security level changed for the better on the whole,ecological protection by sealing desertified areas have realized remarked effects,and the policy achieved good ecological performance.Second,contingent valuation method(CVM)was utilized as the research method to investigate urban families in the sample counties and peasant households in the project area about their willingness to pay(WTP)for the benefits of environmental improvement of sealing desertified areas and estimate the economic value and the policy's benefit-cost efficiency on the basis of survey microdata.The study shows that among the sample population,96%of peasant households and98.68%of urban families have relevantly stronger consumer preference and willingness to pay for the benefits of the environmental improvement of sealing desertified areas,namely willing to donate for ecological protection for continuing to enjoy the benefits.Sampled peasant households'willingness to pay for improving the benefits is 162.81 yuan/year/household,while that of urban families in the sample areas is 180.07 yuan/year/household,the total environmental value created by the sealed protection is as high as 858.857 million yuan for the study area every year.According to the evaluation results of the environmental value of the sealed protection in sample areas,the policy's benefit-cost ratio is 1.43:1,indicating that the policy has a good return on investment(economic performance).Based on the above analysis,the policy has achieved good ecological effects and excellent economic performance,continuing to maintain(or keep)the policy is an advisable policy choice for the future,therefore the policy itself is sustainable.For the sustainability of the implementation of the policy,this article conducts a quantitative analysis and study from the perspectives of incentive compatibility differences between stakeholders—the local governments in the process of implementing the policy and of recognition of policy collaborator—peasant households in the sealed conservation area about the policy.First,different job costs in principal-agent relations and the differences between agents in“incentive compatibility”under a contract structure are taken as research perspective,with two holistic problems influencing the sustainable implementation of the policy found in the actual survey as the starting point,to study the differences between local governments in incentive compatibility when performing the policy on behalf of the central government.The study indicates that the sustainable implementation of the policy varies from place to place.In areas carrying out the policy with high opportunity cost,local governments have a weak incentive to push the policy,resulting to the low sustainability of the policy implementation,while in places executing the policy with a low opportunity cost,local governments have a strong incentive,as a result,the policy implementation is more sustainable.In extreme cases,when the policy implementation requires an extremely high opportunity cost,the incentive compatibility of a local government to carry out the policy is 0,which means the local government will not carry out the desertified land sealed protection project.The sustainability of the policy itself influences the sustainability of the policy implementation,and the implementation of the policy is still in the pilot phase at present,which will exert a negative influence on the sustainable implementation of the policy.When the central government makes a trustworthy promise to push the policy by issuing formal institution and detailed implementation rules,allocating sufficient funds in a timely manner or taking other actions,and local governments have clear policy expectations,the policy implementation is of high sustainability,otherwise,the sustainability will be low.Second,based on survey data on peasant households in the sample areas,TOPSIS method and bivariate logistic regression model are used to assess how peasant households in study areas recognize the policy and analyze the variables of demographic and socio-economic characteristics of peasant households that have a significant influence on their recognition.The study shows that among all samples,peasant households who highly recognize desertified land governance take up as high as 90%,which indicates that the vast majority of peasant households in the project areas highly approve and support the construction of sealing desertified areas and the policy and hence actively cooperate with policies and regulations regarding sealed protection in desertified land,thus laying a sound micro-foundation for the sustainable implementation of the policy.The factors significantly influencing how peasant households recognize sandy land governance are their age-bracket,educational level and whether peasant households have suffered from the losses caused by desertification,meanwhile,the recognition of peasant households varies significantly in counties.Specifically,the senior have a higher recognition,those who have a higher educational level have a higher recognition,and those peasant households who have suffered from the loss caused by desertification will have a higher recognition of decertified land governance.For further enhancing the sustainability of the policy,this article starts from the fact that the construction of sealing desertified areas has caused opportunity cost to the livelihood of some peasant households nearby,and conducts quantitative analysis on two levels-proving the necessity to introduce sealed protection compensation mechanism to sealed desertified areas and calculating scientific and reasonable sealed protection compensation standards:First,the analysis with a game model with“local governments and peasant households in the enclosed areas”as players indicates that if sealed protection compensation policy is introduced to sealed desertified areas and gives peasant households whose livelihood are affected reasonable compensations,their rational choice will be abiding by the regulations of the sealed protection policy and will not conduct illegal behaviors such as illegal herding,illegal picking and illegal felling in the sealed desertified areas.Therefore,it is necessary to introduce a sealed protection compensation mechanism to sealed desertified areas,which will serve as a forceful guarantee for the sustainable implementation of the policy.Second,further calculation with minimum data method shows that if peasant households in the sealed protection areas are compensated in accordance with current compensation standard for returning farmland to forestry-3,600 yuan/hm~2(240 yuan/mu),then compensation standards are too low and incentive effect is limited,while if the compensation standard is set as 19,770yuan/hm~2(1,318 yuan/mu),then it will encourage all peasant households near sealed desertified areas to voluntarily transform their land utilization model from cultivation to sealed protection,which will lead to a sharp decrease in demand for water for agricultural irrigation and make great room for ecological water use,leading to enormous effects of ecological protection and a substantial improvement in the performance of sandy land enclosure and protection policy.Based on the analysis above,although the policy has a solid mass base in the project area,which follows that sustainable implementation has a sound micro foundation,yet its implementation gave rise to the opportunity cost of local government to develop economy and that of the livelihood of peasant households,and sealed protection compensation policy has not been implemented in the project area now,as a result,in areas with a low opportunity cost,the policy implementation is of high sustainability,while in areas with a high opportunity cost,the policy implementation has a worrying sustainability.The particularity of the national policy consists in its pursuit of pure ecological governance,so,the execution of sealed desertified area project will not directly exchange interests with local residents,nor directly increase the economic income of residents in the project area,rather,the project indirectly enhances the well-being of residents by improving the ecological environment of the project area.The keys to the sustainability of the policy are whether its ecological performance can be achieved,whether local government can overcome its inner impulse to grow regional economy and seriously carry out all policies and documents and whether peasant households around the enclosed areas can seriously cooperate with the policy's regulations regarding the enclosure and proactively protect the small ecosystem in the enclosed areas.From the three perspectives above,this article conducts an in-depth analysis and makes some meaningful conclusions,and lastly proposes some specific policy recommendations,including building future fund-raising channels,policy expectation,selecting sites for sealed desertified areas and improving the recognition of peasant households in the project area and welfare level.