Abstract:

Ecological compensation policies often layer emphases mainly on the goal of ecological protection, and little on their impacts on livelihood of the farm households involved and their willingness to participate, which ultimately affect efficiency and sustainability of the ecological compensation policies. Based on the surveys of the farm households in the Haba Lake National Nature Reserve (HLNNR) and the Liupanshan Mountain National Nature Reserve (LMNNR), a study was performed to analyze willingness of the farm households to participate in ecological compensation and its affecting factors, using the comparative analysis method and binary Logistic regression analysis method. Results show as follows:(1) About 57.7% and 67.6% of the farm households interviewed in HLNNR and NNRLM respectively were satisfied with the prevailing ecological compensation policies and about 63.3% and 57.8% willing to continue participating in ecological compensation, which indicate that though a majority of the farm households were positive about the policies, there was still quite a number who held negative attitudes; and (2) Livelihood was the major factor affecting willingness of the farm households to participate in ecological compensation in HLNNR and NNRLM. It varied significantly from region to region. The farm households in HLNNR lived mostly on agriculture and animal husbandry, and those who had a high portion of their income coming from agriculture and/or animal husbandry were readily willing to keep on participating in the ecological compensation project, meanwhile the farm households in NNRLM had more and more turned to non-farming employment to earn their living and those who had their income coming more and more from non-farming employment, and less and less from agriculture and animal husbandry were apparently willing to stay in the ecological compensation project; It is, therefore, suggested that in formulating and implementing ecological compensation policies, more concerns be placed on type and level of livelihood of the farm households, the ecological compensation policies be combined with precise poverty alleviation policies, and compensation be diversified in mode specific to farm households different in livelihood, so as to achieve a "win-win" effect in transforming livelihood of the farm households and protecting the ecology.

Key words: ecological compensation, farm household, willingness to participate, livelihood, National Nature Reserve