Ecological Migration Project Research Articles

Evaluation of the Types and Comprehensive Effects of Ecological Migration in China: Taking the Ecological Protection and Land Tenure Protection of Xihaigu Area in Ningxia as an Example

The ecological migration project in the Xihaigu Area of Ningxia, the first of such projects to be initiated with the longest history, is a typical example of China's ecological migration projects. Through the methods of field investigation, in-depth interviews, and examination of typical cases, the paper aims to evaluate Xihaigu's ecological migration project in the aspects of ecological restoration, poverty alleviation, income increase and social development. The conclusion is that China's ecological immigrants represented by Xihaigu's example have reached ecological improvement goals and economic and social development. At the same time, due to the government's vigorous promotion of this process, the fairness of the distribution of benefits for migrants in the earlier and later stages is slightly unbalanced, and the ecological protection awareness of the immigrants was always insufficient. The later process of immigration was relatively too fast, and ecological migration still faces further challenges.

Environmental policy evaluation from the perspective of farmers' perception in arid oasis ecosystem: Experiences of Minqin, Northwest China

Effective eco-environment rehabilitation is an essential policy issue in arid oasis ecosystem. Since 2007, a policy which focuses on environment restoration and protection was implemented in the Shiyang River Basin of Gansu Province, China. Using Minqin oasis as a case, the effectiveness of policy impacts based on farmers’ perception was evaluated. In addition, an ordinal logistic regression model was used to explore the potential factors affecting farmers’ perception of policy effectiveness. Data were collected from household heads or spouses and other adults (age>18) separately in a random sample of 425 households. The results showed that positive outcomes were achieved, however, two policy measures—the water restrictions and the ecological migration project—were rated at a low level of satisfaction by the farmers. Moreover, 11 determinants were extracted by the logistic regression method, and indicating that economic factors including the ownership of the arable land and the availability of household income turned out to be the most significant. The results can help to establish eco-environmental restoration targets, encourage investments, and lead to the development of more applicable methods for assessing policy effects from the perspective of smallholders in ecologically fragile areas all over the world. Keywords: Environmental policy evaluation; Farmers’ perception; Ordinal logistic regression; Minqin oasis; Northwest China

Prevalence of mental disorders in migrants compared with original residents and local residents in Ningxia, China.

BackgroundEcological migrants has a special background compared with other types of migrant. However, the mental health status of ecological migrants who were expected to benefit from a massive “ecological migration project” initiated by the Chinese government is unknown. This study aims to explore the influence of environmental change on individuals’ mental health and to improve current understanding of the mechanisms that mental disorders occurred.MethodsThe data were extracted from a cross-sectional study. Anxiety disorders, mood disorders and substance use disorders were assessed using the Chinese version WHO-CIDI. The prevalence of mental disorders was stratified by migration status into ecological migrant, local resident and original resident groups. Unconditional logistic regression models were used to calculate the risk of prevalence among these three groups.ResultsAfter controlling for gender, ethnicity, age, marriage, and education, the migrants had lower risk of mental disorders than original residents [OR = 0.70 (95 % CI: 0.57–0.86)], p < 0.001), but had a higher risk of mental disorders than local residents [OR = 1.29 (95 % CI: 1.06–1.55)], p = 0.007).ConclusionThe ecological migration project may be beneficial to people’s mental health by improving their living environment and social economy.

Ecological indicators for immigrant relocation areas: a case in Luanjingtan, Alxa, Inner Mongolia

Grassland ecological migration project is implemented in Northwest China as an attempt to restore the deteriorative ecosystems. People are relocated from uninhabitable areas to immigrant areas, resulting in land use changes, which would significantly impact the ecological environment. Therefore, it urgently needs quantitative evaluation and analysis of the trends of ecological change in these immigrant areas. We selected Luanjingtan, which is the largest ecological immigrant area in Alxa, Inner Mongolia, as our case. In this case, we chose ecological carrying capacity (EC) and ecosystem services value as indicators to evaluate the ecological changes from 1992 to 2011. Due to the expansion of cropland and grassland, the total EC increased from 320.0 gha in 1992 to 86,214.6 gha in 2011, and the total ecosystem services value increased from 570.0 million yuan in 1992 to 963.1 million yuan in 2011. The expansions of cropland and grassland were closely related to agricultural development and a project for returning grazing land to pasture in Luanjigntan. These measures provided a livelihood as well as alleviated the grazing pressure. Therefore, creating a sustainable long-term industry to address the conflict between environmental protection and the needs of those affected by the plan is one of the most important considerations in a grassland ecological migration project.

宁夏移民村年龄结构与发展状况调研报告

宁夏回族自治区从2008年开始实行了生态移民政策，移民是一个新的种群，本文根据调研移民村村民的年龄、移民政策、基础设施等项目，做出了移民村的年龄结构图，通过移民村年龄结构分析移民村未来环境、经济、计划生育、社会保障这些方面将要遇到的问题，本文也对移民村现在的发展状况以及政策落实情况做出了描述。整个调研过程中我们采取了抽样调查，随机采样的方式。发现移民村的整体年龄结构为增长型，而且很多政策落实不到位，移民村的情况还有待改善。 From 2008, The Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region implemented the ecological migration project. Immigration is a new population. According to research immigration villager’s age, immigration policy, infrastructure and so on,we made the age structure of immigrantion village. We want to through the age structure diagram to analyze the local economy, environment, family planning, the social security and other issues. This article also makes a description of the current development status and implementation of the policy for immigration. Throughout the research process, we have taken a sample survey, random sampling mode. We found that the immigration age structure is growth, many policies may not be implemented, and migrant village situation must be improved.

Digital Simulation of Ecological Industry Development Based on Grey Clustering Algorithm

In order to protect the ecological environment of grassland and improve the living standards of the people in the prairie and promote the harmonious development of the economic environment, the state proposes ecological migration project. How to ensure the collaborative development of subsequent industry is the topic concerned the state and society. This article discusses the status and problems of subsequent industrial development after the grassland ecological migration and constructs subsequent development model based on gray clustering model. In order to verify the validity of the model, the paper establishes and analyzes computer simulation system. The result shows that the development model based on gray clustering algorithm can make an accurate assessment on the follow industry trends of grassland ecological migrant which provides reference for following industrial development of grassland ecological migrant.

三江源牧户参与草地生态保护的意愿

Sanjiangyuan Region is the headstream area of three main rivers in Asia,i. e. Yangtze River,Yellow River,and Lancangjiang River( Mekong). It is an important ecological barrier of the local and regional environmental security and sustainable development,not only for China but also for the southeastern Asian,In recent decades,however,grasslands in Sanjiangyuan Region were seriously disturbed or destroyed by both global climate change and human activities,which led to sharp decrease of nourishing capacity of source water and serious environmental problems of the lower reaches. Since 2005,Chinese government began to implement a series of activities,e. g. ‘Returning Grazing Land to Grassland Project' and‘Ecological Migration Project',in Sanjiangyuan Region to alleviate the situation of grassland degradation,and gradually restore and protect the ecological environment. The success of such projects in Sanjiangyuan Region depends largely on local herdsman's active response,support and participation because herdsmen' s ecological protective cognition and behavior response to grassland degradation is the key to the effective implementation of ecological protection and herdsmen' s participation willingness directly influences the accomplishment efficiency and sustainability of ecological protection. In this paper we surveyed 283 Tibetan herder household and tried to explore the key influential factors of their participation willness with the binary logistic model analysis. Several conclusions can be drawn from this investigation:( 1) About 87 percent of herdsmen have realized the externality of ecological protection,but only 70 percent of herdsmen passively participated in ecological protection based on bounded rationality with government domination.( 2) Factors like government' s protection efforts,herdsmen's cognitive level of ecological protection externalities,livelihood level,the degree of contact with the outside world and career opportunities have positive affects on herdsmen's participation willingness in ecological protection,while factors like age,the distance to the towns and regional extreme climate have negative impacts on the ecological protection willness,These factors' influence coefficient are 2. 22、3. 98、1. 93、2. 26、1. 48、-1. 63、-2. 43 and-0. 92.( 3)The livelihood level,grassland degradation perception and externalities cognitive are the most important factors of herdsmen's participation willingness in ecological protection,The probability of Herdsmen' s participation willness is not only the passive response to the consideration of their own profit and the unknown risk but also the individual choices under the influence of ecological protection education and input of local governments.( 4) In order to realize regional ecological protection,the wellbeings of local herdsmen and ecological and economical sustainable development,we should basically solve the present livelihood of the herdsmen who living on the local grasslands in the Sanjiangyuan Region and emphasize on the environmental education in their religious and local livings,formulate the conservation strategies and management planning of grasslands with an emphasis on improving both human livelihood and the environmental protection. We should also build a better ecological compensation strategy which lets herdsmen enjoy the externalities effectiveness of ecological protection and then take an active part in ecological protections of Sanjiangyuan Region.

青海省三江源自然保护区生态移民补偿标准

Payments for Ecosystem Services(PES) are thought to be an effective method to solve eco-environmental problems,and it′s widely adopted to promote ecological conservation all around the world.During the application of PES,Establishing the standard of compensation is crucial,because unreasonable standard may not compensate for the losses of stakeholders,which may dampen participants′ enthusiasm and influence the effects of PES. Sanjiangyuan Natural Reserve,which is one of the most important natural reserves of China,plays key role to the ecological security of lower watershed in China and Southeast Asia.Before setting up this reserve,there are large numbers of herdsmen living in this area,and conservation projects in reserve,including Return Husbandry to Grassland,Return Grain for Green,Ecological Migration and so on,lead to a series of losses of local residents.So giving these migrations compensation through PES is important to the of reserve and local social harmony. During this research,we take two migration villages of Sanjiangyuan natural reserve(GuoLuo village and HeYuan village) as example to calculate the standard of compensation.Basing on the practical situation of research area,and considering the common problems of Chinese PES projects,we adopt 3 types of approaches(opportunity cost of livestock,opportunity cost of and of regional development).Because the preferences of these approaches are different,the established standards of compensation have slight difference. The result of opportunity cost of is 13.9 thousand Yuan per household per year.Livestock is the main source of herdsmen′s revenue,and the ecological migration project let them lose this part.Opportunity cost of takes livestock as proxy when calculating compensation standard,and can compensate for their direct economic losses.So this approach is strongly correlated to the benefits of herdsmen and can maximize the compensation. The result of opportunity cost of is 10.3 thousand Yuan per household per year.Herdsmen can rent out their pasture to others to get rent,and the ecological migration project also let them lose this part of income.Opportunity cost of takes pasture as proxy,and compensate for the losses of rent.This approach considers pasture as commodity and reflects the relationship between supply and demand,and this approach can also simplify the calculating process.But this approach doesn′t consider natural heterogeneity,and all the pastures are calculated equally. The result of of regional development is 11 thousand Yuan per household per year.There is great regional economic difference in our research area,and this actuality should not be ignored during the PES project,especially for ecological migration.Difference of regional development can consider this difference,but the standard is still too low,comparing to the other two approaches.And neither herdsmen′ losses nor ecosystem services are related to this approach. Our results suggests that PES may provide limited benefits for the poverty reduction,but this research can still provide scientific foundation of establishing the compensation standard for Sanjiangyuan natural reserve,and case studying in other area can also borrow idea from our research.

Ecological migration effects on the Tianchi Scenic Area in Xinjiang: from the perspective of migrant farmer families

As an important approach for relieving conflicts between ecosystems and human activities in the Tianchi Scenic Area, Xinjiang of China, an ecological migration policy was implemented, aiming to improve the regional ecological environment. The case of resettlement was closely related to the smooth implementation of the migration project. Based on the questionnaires and farmer family interviews, both changes in the ecological envi- ronment and the living conditions of migrant farmer families in the Tianchi Scenic Area were investigated in this study. The objectives were to assess the benefits of the ecological migration policy and to analyze the effects of ecological migration on migrant farmer families. The results showed that (1) awareness of the need for ecological environmental protection and the types of migrant families had a great influence on the willingness to migration; (2) since the implementation of the ecological migration project, the ecological environment in the Tianchi Scenic Area had improved significantly, particularly in terms of returning farmland to forestry, while pressures on grassland had also been relieved to some extent; (3) the major income sources and occupations of the migrant farmer families changed, the range of their income sources declined, and their per capita incomes decreased at different degrees; and (4) nearly half of the farmer families were not satisfied with the living environment of new settlements and the decline in the quality of life had significant influences on the attitudes of migrants. In order to ensure the successful implementation of an ecological migration project, it is essential to enhance farmer awareness of needs for eco- logical environmental protection, and to solve resettlement problems properly.

Response to “Rethinking Ecological Migration and the Value of Cultural Continuity”

Response to “Rethinking Ecological Migration and the Value of Cultural Continuity”