Livelihood Adaptation Of Indigenous Residents In Qilian Mountain National Park

The protection of nationally representative ecosystems is the main goal of building National Parks.However,National Parks are geographically highly overlapping with ecologically fragile rural areas,and in the process of exploring ecological protection and community development,they inevitably disrupt the livelihood systems of indigenous residents,making indigenous residents have to consider how to adjust their strategies to adapt to changes in the external environment.Exploring the livelihood adaptation process of indigenous residents is important for them to improve livelihood adaptation effect and for National Parks to explore a new model of "ecological conservation and livelihood improvement".This paper takes Qilian Mountain National Park as a study case and obtains the micro-survey data from 247 households in the surrounding area.Based on the sustainable livelihood theory and the adaptation theory,this paper constructs a comprehensive analysis framework for livelihood adaptation.The Entropy value method,K-means cluster analysis,Logit model and Probit model are used to analyse the choice of adaptation strategies,the strengths and weaknesses of adaption capacity,adaptation effect and its influencing factors.The study conclusions are as follows:(1)Expansion,assistance and contraction adaptation strategies are the main adaptation strategy choices of indigenous residents,especially increasing livelihood channels,borrowing from banks,adjusting the scale of farming and reducing household expenses.But adjustment adaptation strategy such as directly engaging in nonagricultural and non-pastoral activities are not yet favoured by the residents,which shows that directly abandoning traditional livelihoods is not realistic and that indigenous residents need to be guided to change their livelihoods step by step.(2)The overall performance of the adaptation capacity and adaptation effect of indigenous residents is unsatisfactory.Among them,the adaptive capacity and adaptation effect of indigenous residents with the expansion and the assistance adaptation strategy are obviously better than those with the adjustment and the contraction adaptation strategy,showing that good adaption capacity tends to achieve good adaptation effect.(3)The factors influencing the adaptation effect of indigenous residents are various,including the number of labour force,the education level of labour force,neighbourhood relations,borrowing opportunities,the number of public officials among relatives and the area of arable land per capita.The number of labour force,borrowing opportunities and the area of arable land per capita significantly affect income growth rate;the number and education level of labour force,borrowing opportunities and the number of public officials among relatives significantly affect diversity of livelihood;and neighbourhood relations significantly affects life satisfaction.(4)The factors influencing the adaptation effect of indigenous residents differ between adaptation strategies.The factors influencing indigenous residents with the expansion adaptation strategy are the education level of labour force,annual income per capita,number of public officials among relatives,large livestock stock and grazable grassland area per capita;the factors influencing indigenous residents with adjustment adaptation strategy are the education level of labour force,annual income per capita,borrowing opportunities and annual spending on favours;the factors influencing indigenous residents with assistance adaptation strategy are borrowing opportunities,number of public officials among relatives,neighborhood relations and arable land area per capita;the factors influencing indigenous residents with contraction adaptation strategy are the number of labour force,borrowing opportunities,the number of household durables and arable land area per capita.Combining the characteristics of the adaptation elements and the results of the empirical analysis,this study makes the following recommendations: For those who adopt the expansionist adaptation strategy,they should encourage youth to improve their education level,develop moderate scale farming and animal husbandry,and attach importance to human interaction;for those who adopt the adjustment strategy,they should gain a better understanding of and actively participate in franchising,while the government can help them to drive the transformation of livelihoods by facilitating access to loans;for those who adopt the assistance strategy,they should use their loans wisely and encourage the development of stable and profitable speciality agriculture,while increasing their life satisfaction through mutual assistance in the neighbourhood.For indigenous residents who adopt the contractionary adaptation strategy,the government can turn them into professional ecological conservation practitioners and encourage livelihood adaptation with policy loans at low or subsidised interest rates.