Grassland Ecological Compensation, Income Level and Policy Satisfaction: An Empirical Analysis Based on a Survey of Herders in Ecological Protection Redline Areas

Abstract

In the past 10 years, the implementation of grassland ecological compensation policy has played an important role in the sustainable development of the pastoral economy. How much impact on herders will delineating the ecological conservation redline have? Such delineation is significant for the smooth implementation of the ecological conservation redline. Based on this, taking the three banner counties with a large area under the control area of the ecological redline of the Xilin Gol as examples, OLS and quantile regression were used to analyze the impact of a grassland ecological compensation policy on herdsmen’s income level, and the ordered Probit model was used to analyze the influencing factors of herdsmen’s satisfaction with the policy. The results show that: (1) grassland ecological compensation has a significant positive impact on low-income herders in ecological protection redline areas; (2) grassland ecological compensation, income and the implementation of current policy have a positive impact on the satisfaction of herders in the redline area; (3) herdsmen are highly satisfied with the grassland ecological compensation policy, but there is still a lot of room for improvement in the compensation policy after the redline is delineated. In this regard, we should increase compensation for areas with a high proportion of ecological conservation redlines, and explore ways to increase income from animal husbandry products. At the same time, we should strengthen the publicity of ecological protection redline policies and promote the timely disbursement of funds, reconstruct the grassland ecological compensation mechanism by strengthening policy incentives and hardening regulatory constraints, and effectively improve the policy efficiency of ecological protection redlines.