Research On Sustainable Livelihoods Of Farmers Around Haba Lake Natural Reserve In Ningxia

Natural Reserves are to maintain the ecological safety of our country and protect thefragile ecological environment and natural resources. Compared with the general ruralcommunity, farmers around Natural Reserves have a close relationship with theirsurroundings.The establishment of nature reserves limits the farmers to use natural resources,but farmers need natural resources to make a living; If nobody change the way of the farmers’livelihood, it will accelerate the deterioration of ecological environment sanctuary, so thataffect the sustainable development of farmers’ livelihood. Therefore, it is urgent to improvethe farmers’ livelihood during the period of construction of Natural Reserve.Taking farmers around Haba Lake Natural Reserve in Ningxia as a research object, basedon the research framework of sustainable livelihoods of UK Department for InternationalDevelopment, this paper has built a new analysis framework about the farmers’ sustainablelivelihoods around Natural Reserve. Relying on survey data about farmers living situation inAugust2012around Haba Lake Nature Reserve, this paper has carried on the descriptivestatistical analysis on livelihood capital, livelihood strategies, and livelihood consequencesand summarized the local farmers’ production and life changes before and after theestablishment of Natural Reserve from a dynamic view. What’s more, this paper has explainedhow the different development process of Natural Reserve affects the livelihood of farmers.Research findings show that farmers’ livelihood capital has increased so far. Amongthem, natural capital has reduced, human capital has risen, material capital and financialcapital has increased, and social capital has been expanded.At the same time, the strategy of local farmers’ livelihood has shifted from single todiversification. The proportion of households with combined occupations has been improvedconstantly. The number of rural floating labor forces has risen. Depending on the Binarylogistic regression model, this paper has verified the human capital, natural capital and socialcapital play significant roles in whether being households with combined occupations. Amongthem, the natural capital is negative. Among households with combined occupations, thispaper used Multinomial Logistic Regression model to express the quantitative relation between the different flow type of rural labor force and its influence factors. The result showsthat ecological compensation may reduce the rural labor forces’ enthusiasm on participation inflow.Based on Quantile Regression model and Expand Linear Expenditure System,combining with related data and analysis results, this paper concludes that the livelihoodconsequences of the farmers around Haba Lake Natural Reserve are income increasing,consumption increasing, and dependence of traditional agriculture reducing. For the farmersat different income level, the role of each capital among livelihood capital is different. Amongthem, only natural capital and financial capital significantly affects the low-incomehouseholds. In addition, the basic needs of local residents food spending is much higher thanother consumer spending, followed by housing, transportation and communication andcultural and educational entertainment consumption. As income increases, the demand oflocal farmers in living and cultural and educational entertainment growth is greater thanincome growth. Marginal propensity of consumption on living is the highest in allconsumption. The farmers’ consumption gap has widened gradually.Risk on the farmers around Natural Reserve from vulnerability background has reduced.The existing high-speed economic growth effectively drives transfer of rural labors tonon-agricultural industries.The surrounding farmers’ livelihood will be more sustainable as Haba Lake NaturalReserve has further demonstrated its value. But a small number of farm households cannotadapt to this change——"set up a nature reserve".Based on the results of the analysis above, this paper puts forward Nature Reserveshould perfect the management mechanism, construct condominium, and make good use ofnatural resources. While focusing on ecological benefits, relevant departments shall graduallyguide the Natural Reserve to release the economic and social benefits and let the surroundingfarmers involve in management, in order to achieve a win-win situation which is a sustainabledevelopment of ecological construction and peasant household livelihood. At the same time, itis recommended that the relevant departments to properly adjust the subsidy policy with theurbanization construction measures, and lead rural labors to choose reasonable flow.