The Impact of China’s Grassland Ecological Compensation Policy on the Income Gap between Herder Households? A Case Study from a Typical Pilot Area

作者：Zhidong Li, Didi Rao, Moucheng Liu · 发表于：Land · 年份：2021 · DOI：10.3390/land10121405 · 被引用次数：24 · 研究领域：Rangeland Management and Livestock Ecology、Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management、Land Use and Ecosystem Services

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 inde...