Grazing Forbidden Project's Impact On Household Livestock And The Response Of Herdsmen In Tianzhu County

Grazing forbidden project can play a very important role in protecting grassland. The success of grazing forbidden project not only depends on the technical standard of the project and construction supporting measure, but also depends on herdsman's recognition. Only when herdsman can benefit from the project, the project can be sustained. Therefore, it is very important to study the impact of the project on herdsman household livestock and the response of herdsmen to the project. The study can be helpful for establishing long-term mechanism.Based on the interview and questionnaire survey, the paper researches the impact of the grazing forbidden project on herdsman household livestock and response of herdsmen to the project. The impact of grazing forbidden project on herdsman household livestock includes the impact of property right of grassland on overgrazing, change in feeding time, change in labor inputs, change in the species and number of livestock, and change in livestock net income. The main findings are as follows:More herdsmen overgraze in summer and autumn grassland than in winter and spring grassland because the former is jointly used by several allied household while the latter is used only by one household. The implementation of the grazing forbidden project leads to significant, but different degree of increase in feeding time and feeding amount in grasslands surveyed. There is no change on pasture labour in summer and autumn grassland, while pasture labor in winter and spring grassland decreases. The feeding labour amount increases.After the implementation of the project, herdsmen no longer raise goat which damage grassland seriously. On the one hand, the project may force herdsmen to reduce the number of livestock, but on the other, the significant raise of meat price stimulates herdsmen to raise more livestock. On the whole, the number of livestock increases slightly. After the implementation of the project, the grassland area is the first important factor influencing the number of livestock of each household, and the household income is the second important factor since households with higher income are capable of buying more forage. After the implementation of the project, net income of per household from livestock increased significantly mainly because that the price of meat increased much more than that of forage.Herdsman's response to the project includes the willingness to participate in the project and the evaluation on compensation policy. It is found that all herdsmen supported the project, but to different degree, and the herdsmen surveyed had different evaluation on compensation standards. The reason may be that the same compensation standards do not take the quality of grassland into account. Many studies appeal to government departments for reforming compensation standard. The compensation standard should be the better the grazing pasture, the higher the compensation. But the conclusions of this study do not support the policy recommendation.Based on the findings above, the author put forward to policy suggestions. One is to carry out different compensation standards according to quality of grassland, and the other is that summer and autumn grassland should also be managed by each household.The paper contains six chapters. Chapter I, introduction. The author introduces the background and significance for choosing this topic, and summarizes the basic content and the main method of this study. Chapter II, literature review. The author reviews relevant studies on grazing forbidden project, including the content of grazing forbidden policy, implementation effects and ecological compensation. Chapter III, general situation of study area, including general situation of Tianzhu County, the situation of sample towns, grassland contracting history and the implementation situation of grazing forbidden project. Chapter IV, grazing forbidden project's impact on household livestock. Chapter V, the policy response of herdsmen involved in the project. Chapter VI, conclusion and discussion.