The Impact of China’s Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy on the Income Gap between Herder Households? A Case Study from a Typical Pilot Area

China’s policy of subsidies and rewards for grassland ecological protection (PSRGEP) aims to maintain the ecological function of grasslands and increase the income of herder households. Since 2011, the Chinese government has invested more than 150 billion yuan in this policy, making it currently the largest grassland ecological compensation project in China. Based on a survey of 203 herder households in Xin Barag Left Banner, Inner Mongolia Autonomous Region, this study used the Lorenz curve and Gini index to describe the imbalance in the distribution of compensation funds. Then, the integrated livelihood capital scores before compensation were used as a baseline. The changes in ranking and standard deviation of the scores after receiving compensation funds were analysed to draw a conclusion about the impact on the income gap between herder households. Finally, we described the absolute income gap through a group comparison. The results show that the distribution of compensation funds is unbalanced (Gini index is 0.46). According to the order of compensation funds from high to low, the top 20% of sample herder households received 49% of the total funds. Given the unbalanced distribution, households with better family economic conditions received more compensation funds. After receiving the compensation funds, the change in the ranking of the household’s livelihood capital integrated score was small, but the standard deviation increased from 0.1697 to 0.1734, and the Gini index of the households’ capital integrated scores decreased from 0.35 to 0.34 (the coefficient of variation decreased from 0.66 to 0.63). The group with the highest integrated livelihood capital score received 3.6 times the compensation funds of the group with the lowest score. As a result, under the promotion of PSRGEP, the local absolute income gap has widened, but the relative income gap has reduced. This study evaluated the current distribution of compensation funds for PSRGEP, which could provide a scientific basis for managers to optimize the fund distribution in the future

Blood transfusion or hematopoiesis? how to select between the subsidy mode and the long-term mode of eco-compensation

As a long-term mechanism for eco-compensation, the ‘Hematopoiesis-Compensation Policy’ (HCP) such as industrial transformation can effectively improve the operability and efficiency of compensation policy. However, compared with the ‘Transfusion-compensation Policy’ (TCP) such as the cash subsidy, can HCP quickly achieve the goal of eco-compensation? Does HCP require more total investment in compensation funds? This paper takes the Shennongjia National Park System Pilot Zone (SNJNP) as the research area and takes the eco-compensation policy to encourage farmers to return farmland to forest as the research object. We set three different compensation modes of TCP and HCP, and study the compensation scenarios in the next 20 years. The results show that HCP can achieve the purpose of compensation faster than TCP. Although the annual payment of HCP is relatively higher at the beginning, both the annual expenditure and the cumulative expenditure will decrease significantly. Therefore, later annual expenditure and cumulative total expenditure of HCP will be lower than TCP

Research on Ecological Compensation of National Parks Based on Tourism Concession Mechanism

The Chinese government has already proposed to build a nature protected area system composed mainly of national parks and encourages the development of concession operations in national parks. The establishment of a long-term ecological compensation mechanism under the concession mode is of great significance to promoting the harmonious development of man and nature in national parks. This paper selects the Pilot Programs for Shennongjia National Park System (PPSNPS) as the research area and constructs a long-term ecological compensation mechanism under the concession model of tourism back-feeding communities in PPSNPS. Through the questionnaire survey (516 valid questionnaires in 2018), based on the Travel Cost Interval Analysis (TCIA) and Contingent Valuation Method (CVM), the landscape value of the study area is monetized. Combined with the investment cost of concession enterprises, we construct the quantitative distribution ratio of the ecological compensation standard and get the amount of ecological compensation. On this basis, a long-term ecological compensation scheme is constructed. This specific scheme content is as below: on the one hand, Shennongjia National Park Administration (SNPA) is the beneficiary of ecological compensation, and the Shennong Tourism Investment Group Co, Ltd. (STIC) is the provider of ecological compensation; on the other hand, the travel tickets income is the only source of ecological compensation funds (back-feeding funds). Specifically, the landscape value of PPSNPS in 2018 was 604,230.3 × 104 yuan, the input cost of STIC was 140,696 × 104 yuan, the income after deducting tax from tourism tickets was 15,200 × 104 yuan, and the distribution ratio of back-feeding funds is 1:4.29 with the back-feeding funds provided to SNPA from STIC of 12,326.65 × 104 yuan. Through this paper, we know that landscape value monetization can provide ideas for quantitative accounting of the ecological compensation standard for national park tourism concession. In the future, this subject needs more theoretical and practical research on multiple long-term ecological compensation mechanisms

Effects of water table on cellulose and lignin degradation of Carex cinerascens in a large seasonal floodplain

Water table affects litter decomposition in wetlands, but its effects on the degradation of cellulose and lignin are poorly understood. We performed a decomposition experiment in Poyang Lake Wetland, to determine how water table affected the degradation of cellulose and lignin. After 60 days of decomposition at a site with a relatively highly water table, 46.19% of initial cellulose and 41.95% of initial lignin remained. Decay rates of both cellulose and lignin increased as the depth of the water table increased. Principle component analysis showed that the decay rates of cellulose and lignin increased with increasing soil pH, but decreased with increasing contents of clay and fungi: bacteria ratio. The path model accounted for 66% and 79% of the variation in cellulose and lignin decay rates, respectively, and considered the effects of interactions between the water table and related factors. The cellulose decay rate was affected by the water table with a direct coefficient of 0.47, and an indirect coefficient of 0.65, but the lignin decay rate was indirectly affected by water table (coefficient, 1.25) and directly affected by soil property (coefficient, 0.67). Thus, the water table affected the decomposition of cellulose and lignin via different mechanisms