Abstract
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.
Highlights
Grassland is one of the largest terrestrial ecosystems and an important source of food and energy for humans [1,2,3]
According to the sustainable livelihood approach (SLA) [39,40] proposed by the Department for International Development (DFID), combined with the livelihood characteristics of Xin Barag Left Banner herder households, this study developed a livelihood capital indicator system for sample herder households (Table 2)
The calculation results show that the Gini index of the sample households’ compensation fund allocation is 0.46
Summary
Grassland is one of the largest terrestrial ecosystems and an important source of food and energy for humans [1,2,3]. The idea of the PSRGEP is that the government provides subsidies and rewards (compensation funds) for herder households in the pastoral areas of 13 provinces to encourage them to reduce their grazing activities In this way, the production intensity of the grassland will decrease, and the ecological function of the grassland will gradually recover. As the most vital component of China’s grassland ecological compensation program, the PSRGEP involves a large transfer payment (the Chinese government has allocated more than 150 billion yuan in 10 years), a large number of people, and a large coverage area. These factors have drawn scholars’ attention to this policy. This study will explore the impact of PSRGEP on the income gap to provide an important reference for the follow-up regulation of the policy
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