Farmers’ Willingness to Accept Compensation to Maintain the Benefits of Urban Forests

Abstract

The Returning Farmland to Forest Program (RFFP) was implemented in China in 1999 with the goal of supporting environmental restoration by returning significant areas of cultivated land to forest. While afforestation supports long-term ecosystem services like carbon sequestration and the reduction of soil and water loss, it also reduces the amount of available arable land, putting financial pressure on those who depend on it for their livelihoods. In an effort to balance both ecological and economic benefits, regional governments offer financial compensation to farmers to offset these pressures in the form of a dollar amount per hectare of reforested land. The current study explores participants’ willingness to accept pay (WTA), along with the difference between the offered per hectare compensation and the amount deemed acceptable by RFFP participants in the region. To this end, 92 households from the representative afforestation area were surveyed in Huining County, Gansu Province, China - an area of strategic ecological importance in the Loess Plateau. The results showed 12.0% of the surveyed respondents to be satisfied with the current compensation policy, while 88.0% of respondents were not. The respondents’ lower and upper WTA limits were $221/ha/year and $1331/ha/year, respectively, with an average WTA of $777/ha/year. The compensation that respondents would be most willing to accept was distributed in the $444–888/ha/year and the $889–1331/ha/year ranges, accounting for 37.0% and 31.5% of the total responses, respectively. Gender, age, and education were found to be the main factors influencing a respondents’ WTA. Results of the survey suggest that the actual compensation amount ($355/ha/year) is much lower than respondents’ WTA, and that compensation measures and policies should be improved to guarantee a basic income.

Driving Factors and Future Prediction of Land Use and Cover Change Based on Satellite Remote Sensing Data by the LCM Model: A Case Study from Gansu Province, China

“…But it did not mean that the changes of unused lands had nothing to do with human activities. In fact, on the contrary, a large area of unused lands far from humans was covered with planted grasses and trees in this area [39].…”

“…However, Gansu is also the most undeveloped area in China. Since 1970s, with the aim to protect the harsh natural environment, a series of environment protection policies have been implemented in this area, including the Three-North Forest Shelterbelts Program launched in 1979 and the Grain for Green Program (GGP) implemented in 1999 [4,38,39]. Complex natural and human background drove the land use and cover changes in Gansu, but also made it difficult to detect and predict the change process and its driving mechanisms.…”

“…In the first stage , land use and cover transition structure was not very favorable to the sustainability of the environment and socio-economy, and large amounts of grasslands, water areas, and unused lands were used to cultivate crops, expand urban areas and build roads, resulting in ecological problems, such as sandstorms and desertification [52][53][54]. Meanwhile, the forests increased as a results of environmental protection policy [4,39] (such as the Three-North Forest Shelterbelts Program launched in 1979), however it was mainly based on destroying grasslands and farmlands and just a little area of unused lands were converted (Table 3). During the second period (2005-2018), the land use structure tended to be more rational.…”

Farmers’ Attitudes and Perceptions and the Effects of the Grain for Green Project in China: A Case Study in the Loess Plateau

“…However, many farmers believe that water quality has deteriorated, which may be related to the long-term mining of minerals in many local mines. The current subsidy may not meet farmers' expectations [24], however, continuously increasing subsidies may not be the best way to increase farmers' willingness to participate. Once farmers consider land as a commodity, they will always expect higher subsidies [17].…”

Considering Farmers’ Heterogeneity to Payment Ecosystem Services Participation: A Choice Experiment and Agent-Based Model Analysis in Xin’an River Basin, China

“…Payments for ecosystem services (PES) is an effective policy tool to balance the coordinated development of socioeconomic activities and ecological protection [ 1 , 2 , 3 ], especially in developing countries. Currently, PES has been used in some environmental management programs widely, such as forest [ 4 , 5 , 6 , 7 , 8 ], cropland [ 9 , 10 , 11 , 12 ], and watershed [ 13 , 14 , 15 ]. This growing trend is evident in China as well.…”