Livelihood impacts of the conversion of cropland to forest and grassland program

Xie, Chi; Zhao, Jincheng; Liang, Deqing; Bennett, Jeffrey; Zhang, Lei; Dai, Guangcui; Wang, Xuehong

doi:10.1080/09640560600747554

Cited by 32 publications

(25 citation statements)

References 2 publications

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“…Therefore, household food consumption began to depend less on the available land and more on market factors. From a nutritional perspective, residents of Inner Mongolia are generally well nourished, even for low-income families [2]. The food being consumed is also becoming more diverse, and this can encourage both grassland conservation and human health.…”

Section: Household Food and Fuel Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Employment dependence ratio = On-farm employment/Total labor force (2) In this calculation, the total labor force excluded children in school or those who could not work (the disabled, the elderly and very young children). In this calculation, household survey data for onand off-farm employment were obtained and reported by herders or farmers from each household.…”

Section: Calculation Of Household Dependence On Local Grasslands Basementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The livelihoods of pastoral communities are strongly linked to the health of the grasslands on which the majority of these communities rely [1]. However, grasslands in many regions of the world are showing alarming signs of degradation [2,3]. Increasing demand on pasture resources, especially in arid and semi-arid regions, has led to extensive and sometimes irreversible damage to the grassland environment, while simultaneously compromising the livelihoods of residents [4,5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Government Grassland Conservation Policy on Household Livelihoods and Dependence on Local Grasslands: Evidence from Inner Mongolia, China

Zhen

Yan

et al. 2016

Sustainability

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Abstract:Grassland degradation intensifies human-environment conflicts and adversely affects local residents' livelihoods. To reduce grassland degradation in Inner Mongolia, China, the government has enforced (since 1998) a series of grassland conservation and management policies that restrict the use of grasslands. To ease the impact on the residents' livelihoods, the national and regional governments have offered a series of top-down arrangements to stimulate sustainable use of the grasslands. Simultaneously, local households spontaneously developed bottom-up countermeasures. To determine the effects of these processes, we interviewed members of 135 households using a mix of qualitative and quantitative methods. We analyzed the effects on household dependence on local grasslands and on perceptions of the future of grassland use. Our findings show that the implementation of the grassland conservation policies significantly affected household livelihoods, which in turn affected household use of natural assets (primarily the land), their agricultural assets (farming and grazing activities) and their financial assets (income and consumption), resulting in fundamental transformation of their lifestyles. The households developed adaptation measures to account for the dependence of their livelihood on local ecosystems by initializing strategies, such as seeking off-farm work, leasing pasture land, increasing purchases of fodder for stall-fed animals and altering their diet and fuel consumption to compensate for their changing livelihoods.

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Section: Household Food and Fuel Consumptionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Calculation Of Household Dependence On Local Grasslands Basementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Government Grassland Conservation Policy on Household Livelihoods and Dependence on Local Grasslands: Evidence from Inner Mongolia, China

Zhen

Yan

et al. 2016

Sustainability

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“…Uchida et al (2005) found that the average household net income for the SLCP participants has increased significantly, ranging from 75% in Ningxia to 8% in Guizhou. Using separate survey data, Xie et al (2006) also found that the SLCP had a positive impact on recipients' revenue. However, Xu, Bennett, et al (2004), found that over the period of1999-2003, the growth rates in average net income vary greatly across the surveyed regions of their sample.…”

Section: Slcp's Socioeconomic Impactsmentioning

confidence: 94%

Assessing China's Ecological Restoration Programs: What's Been Done and What Remains to Be Done?

Li¹

2009

An Integrated Assessment of China¿s Ecological Restoration Programs

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This article surveys the recent literature that assesses China's ecological restoration programs, including the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP) and the Natural Forest Protection Program (NFPP). Our presumption is that the performance of these programs should be determined by their effectiveness of implementation and significance of impact. Implementation effectiveness can be measured with such indicators as land area converted or conserved, and survival and stocking rates of restored vegetation, while impact significance can be gauged by the induced changes in ecosystem productivity and stability, and socioeconomic conditions. Coupling this matrix with an exhaustive search of the publications, we find that: (1) the implementation effectiveness has not been examined as extensively as the impact significance; (2) efforts to assess the impact significance have concentrated on the SLCP, particularly its socioeconomic effects: growth of income, alternative industry, and employment, and likelihood of re-conversion; and (3) most of the socioeconomic studies are based on rural household surveys, and discrete choice and difference in differences models. Future work should pay more attention to the NFPP and other programs, and the environmental impacts and the implementation effectiveness of all of them. To these ends, analysts must gather more field data regarding the evolving ecosystem conditions and socioeconomic information of higher aggregation, and conduct their research across scales and disciplines, with better application of geospatial technology and more effective collaboration.

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“…In addition, the program has promoted socioeconomic development that has helped numerous farmers change their income structure, thereby increasing their income (J. Liu et al, 2008;Uchida et al, 2005;Xie et al, 2006). The subsidy program focused on grain and cash because the primary consumption targeted by the SLCP was food consumption.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Ecological Consequences of Changing Fuelwood Consumption Patterns in Remote Villages of Northwestern China

Pan¹,

Zhen²,

Yang³

et al. 2012

Appl Ecol Env Res

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Abstract. Consumption of ecosystem goods and services is the foundation of coupled human-natural systems. This paper reported the change in fuelwood consumption in remote northwestern Chinese villages and the ecological consequences that have occurred as a result of the Sloping Land Conversion Program (SLCP), one of China's biggest ecological restoration programs. We conducted this study using structured questionnaires that collected data on fuelwood consumption in 1999 and 2008. For these villages, fuelwood was the most important fuel source (84% of total fuel consumption in 1999). The SLCP restricted cutting of forests, so fuelwood consumption decreased to 39% of the 1999 total by 2008. In response to this decrease and increased planting of trees, the forest area increased. However, a spatial imbalance in fuelwood consumption persisted; the remaining demand for fuelwood meant that forests near villages were under high pressure, with harvesting often exceeding the natural productivity. To meet the demand for fuel and replace the fuelwood, coal consumption increased by 562%. The switch from fuelwood to coal increased CO 2 emissions by 339% from 1999 to 2008. These results have clear consequences for the region's ecology and suggest the need to take measures to account for the consequences of the SLCP.

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Livelihood impacts of the conversion of cropland to forest and grassland program

Cited by 32 publications

References 2 publications

Effects of Government Grassland Conservation Policy on Household Livelihoods and Dependence on Local Grasslands: Evidence from Inner Mongolia, China

Effects of Government Grassland Conservation Policy on Household Livelihoods and Dependence on Local Grasslands: Evidence from Inner Mongolia, China

Assessing China's Ecological Restoration Programs: What's Been Done and What Remains to Be Done?

Ecological Consequences of Changing Fuelwood Consumption Patterns in Remote Villages of Northwestern China

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