What Are the Impacts of a Coastal Zone Protection Policy on Farmers’ Livelihood Capital? Empirical Analysis From the Perspective of Farmer Participation

Peng Cheng,Han Wang,Xingyi Wu,Anlu Zhang,Xin Nie,Zhoupeng Chen,Jing Wang,Siyang Zhu

doi:10.3389/fmars.2021.689182

Abstract

To restore and protect the ecosystem service function of coastal zones, some farmers have changed their certain original production methods and lifestyles and some have even relinquished a portion of the economic benefits that could be obtained directly. What impacts do the coastal zone ecological protection policies bring to the livelihoods of coastal farmers? The strict coastline protection of Beibu Gulf, Hepu County, Beihai City, Guangxi Zhuang Autonomous Region, China, is taken as an example. Combined with the sustainable livelihood framework (SLF), this paper set up an evaluation index system for the livelihood capital of farmers in the Beibu Gulf coastal zone, obtaining 568 valid questionnaires through a field survey, and use the propensity score matching and difference-in-difference (PSM-DID) method to study the impacts of a coastal ecological protection policy on the livelihood capital of coastal farmers from the perspective of farmer participation. The results show that (1) the coastal ecological protection policy had a significant impact on the natural capital and social capital of coastal farmers that actively participated in coastal ecological protection, which increased by 0.181 and 0.052, respectively. (2) However, it did not have a significant impact on the total livelihood capital, human capital, physical capital or financial capital. Therefore, this paper presents policy suggestions for constructing coastal ecological compensation mechanisms and for promoting active participation by coastal farmers in coastal ecological protection efforts.

Highlights

While implementation of ecological protection policies brings significant positive externalities to social development, it is unknown whether the welfare of local residents will suffer losses due to the limitations of these policies (Bennett et al, 2018; Nguyen et al, 2018)
The results showed that the coastal ecological protection policy played a critical role in the social capital of households that participated in coastal ecological protection activities and that implementing the coastal ecological protection policy increased family social capital by 0.052, which indicates that it has a significant positive effect
This study examines the impact of coastal ecological protection policy on the livelihood capital of coastal farmers based on the perspective of farmer participation

Summary

Introduction

While implementation of ecological protection policies brings significant positive externalities to social development, it is unknown whether the welfare of local residents will suffer losses due to the limitations of these policies (Bennett et al, 2018; Nguyen et al, 2018). Humans have carried out large-scale and unrestrained development of coastal resources, which has led to serious damage and deterioration of coral reefs, mangroves and other coastal ecosystems, seriously restricting the sustainable development of the coastal ecology and social economy (Das, 2017; Kim et al, 2020; Zheng et al, 2020). Current researches mainly focus on the significant positive externalities that are brought about by the formulation and implementation of coastal ecological protection policies on the social economy and environment (Bennett et al, 2018; Nguyen et al, 2018; Huang et al, 2020), but pay little attention to the differences of their impacts on the well-being of social groups, especially negative externalities that may have adverse impacts on the well-being of coastal farmers who are closely related to coastal ecological protection

Results

Discussion

Conclusion