IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolec/v180y2021ics0921800920310405.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Development opportunities, forest use transition, and farmers' income differentiation: The impacts of Giant panda reserves in China

Author

Listed:
  • Li, Yi
  • Gong, Peichen
  • Ke, Jiesheng

Abstract

This paper examines the impact of the natural conservation policy in China's giant panda reserves on forest resource utilization and its economic consequences. Different support policies have created different development opportunities for local communities and farmers, which have led to changes in forest use by farmers and their forest-related livelihoods. The empirical results indicate that the use of forest resources by communities and farmers is changing from traditional consumptive uses, such as timber harvest and the collection of nontimber products, to nonconsumptive uses such as ecotourism, forest farming and forest guard. While the share of farmers who are dependent on forests has generally been similar (30% -39%), farmers who are engaged in different types of forest-related activities have shown significant income differentiation. With more participation in eco-tourism, farmers are more likely to become a wealthy group with high income and high assets, whereas engaging in forest farming and logging and NTFP gathering is not conducive to increasing farmers' current incomes. The income inequality among the farmers in the study area is more serious than in other regions. Promoting equal opportunities through diversification and the wide participation of poor groups should be one of the directions for community development in the giant panda reserves.

Suggested Citation

  • Li, Yi & Gong, Peichen & Ke, Jiesheng, 2021. "Development opportunities, forest use transition, and farmers' income differentiation: The impacts of Giant panda reserves in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 180(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:180:y:2021:i:c:s0921800920310405
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106869
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921800920310405
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ecolecon.2020.106869?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Iversen, Vegard & Chhetry, Birka & Francis, Paul & Gurung, Madhu & Kafle, Ghanendra & Pain, Adam & Seeley, Janet, 2006. "High value forests, hidden economies and elite capture: Evidence from forest user groups in Nepal's Terai," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(1), pages 93-107, June.
    2. David Roodman, 2011. "Fitting fully observed recursive mixed-process models with cmp," Stata Journal, StataCorp LP, vol. 11(2), pages 159-206, June.
    3. Ma, Ben & Cai, Zhen & Zheng, Jie & Wen, Yali, 2019. "Conservation, ecotourism, poverty, and income inequality – A case study of nature reserves in Qinling, China," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 115(C), pages 236-244.
    4. Zhongwei Guo & Lin Zhang & Yiming Li, 2010. "Increased Dependence of Humans on Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 5(10), pages 1-8, October.
    5. Solomon Zena Walelign & Mariève Pouliot & Helle Overgaard Larsen & Carsten Smith-Hall, 2015. "A novel approach to dynamic livelihood clustering: Empirical evidence from Nepal," IFRO Working Paper 2015/09, University of Copenhagen, Department of Food and Resource Economics.
    6. Jiao, Xi & Walelign, Solomon Zena & Nielsen, Martin Reinhardt & Smith-Hall, Carsten, 2019. "Protected areas, household environmental incomes and well-being in the Greater Serengeti-Mara Ecosystem," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 1-1.
    7. Øystein Juul Nielsen & Santosh Rayamajhi & Patricia Uberhuaga & Henrik Meilby & Carsten Smith-Hall, 2013. "Quantifying rural livelihood strategies in developing countries using an activity choice approach," Agricultural Economics, International Association of Agricultural Economists, vol. 44(1), pages 57-71, January.
    8. Vedeld, Paul & Angelsen, Arild & Bojo, Jan & Sjaastad, Espen & Kobugabe Berg, Gertrude, 2007. "Forest environmental incomes and the rural poor," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 9(7), pages 869-879, April.
    9. Sunderlin, William D. & Angelsen, Arild & Belcher, Brian & Burgers, Paul & Nasi, Robert & Santoso, Levania & Wunder, Sven, 2005. "Livelihoods, forests, and conservation in developing countries: An Overview," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 33(9), pages 1383-1402, September.
    10. Wieland, Raoul & Ravensbergen, Sarah & Gregr, Edward J. & Satterfield, Terre & Chan, Kai M.A., 2016. "Debunking trickle-down ecosystem services: The fallacy of omnipotent, homogeneous beneficiaries," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 175-180.
    11. Wunder, Sven & Börner, Jan & Shively, Gerald & Wyman, Miriam, 2014. "Safety Nets, Gap Filling and Forests: A Global-Comparative Perspective," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(S1), pages 29-42.
    12. Nielsen, Martin Reinhardt & Pouliot, Mariève & Kim Bakkegaard, Riyong, 2012. "Combining income and assets measures to include the transitory nature of poverty in assessments of forest dependence: Evidence from the Democratic Republic of Congo," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 37-46.
    13. Sommerville, Matthew & Jones, Julia P.G. & Rahajaharison, Michael & Milner-Gulland, E.J., 2010. "The role of fairness and benefit distribution in community-based Payment for Environmental Services interventions: A case study from Menabe, Madagascar," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(6), pages 1262-1271, April.
    14. Monica Fisher & Gerald E. Shively & Steven Buccola, 2005. "Activity Choice, Labor Allocation, and Forest Use in Malawi," Land Economics, University of Wisconsin Press, vol. 81(4).
    15. Angelsen, Arild & Jagger, Pamela & Babigumira, Ronnie & Belcher, Brian & Hogarth, Nicholas J. & Bauch, Simone & Börner, Jan & Smith-Hall, Carsten & Wunder, Sven, 2014. "Environmental Income and Rural Livelihoods: A Global-Comparative Analysis," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(S1), pages 12-28.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Hu, Yuan & Kuhn, Lena & Zeng, Weizhong & Glauben, Thomas, 2023. "Who benefits from payments for ecosystem services? Policy lessons from a forest carbon sink program in China," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 214(C).
    2. Junli Gao & Chaofeng Shao & Sihan Chen, 2022. "Evolution and Driving Factors of the Spatiotemporal Pattern of Tourism Efficiency at the Provincial Level in China Based on SBM–DEA Model," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(16), pages 1-17, August.
    3. Li, Fanlue & He, Ke & Wang, Yuejie & Zhang, Junbiao, 2021. "Does Indoor Air Pollution from Solid Fuels Influence the Mental Health of Rural Residents? Evidence from China," 2021 Conference, August 17-31, 2021, Virtual 315024, International Association of Agricultural Economists.
    4. Li, Yi & Song, Zhenjiang, 2022. "Have protected areas in China achieved the ecological and economic “win-win” goals? Evidence from the Giant Panda Reserves of the Min Mont Range," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Nerfa, Lauren & Rhemtulla, Jeanine M. & Zerriffi, Hisham, 2020. "Forest dependence is more than forest income: Development of a new index of forest product collection and livelihood resources," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    2. Walelign, Solomon Zena & Jiao, Xi, 2017. "Dynamics of rural livelihoods and environmental reliance: Empirical evidence from Nepal," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 199-209.
    3. Bakkegaard, Riyong Kim & Hogarth, Nicholas J. & Bong, Indah Waty & Bosselmann, Aske S. & Wunder, Sven, 2017. "Measuring forest and wild product contributions to household welfare: Testing a scalable household survey instrument in Indonesia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 84(C), pages 20-28.
    4. Jagger, Pamela & Cheek, Jennifer Zavaleta & Miller, Daniel & Ryan, Casey & Shyamsundar, Priya & Sills, Erin, 2022. "The Role of Forests and Trees in Poverty Dynamics," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    5. Wunder, Sven & Angelsen, Arild & Belcher, Brian, 2014. "Forests, Livelihoods, and Conservation: Broadening the Empirical Base," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 64(S1), pages 1-11.
    6. Watmough, Gary R. & Atkinson, Peter M. & Saikia, Arupjyoti & Hutton, Craig W., 2016. "Understanding the Evidence Base for Poverty–Environment Relationships using Remotely Sensed Satellite Data: An Example from Assam, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 188-203.
    7. Handavu, Ferdinand & Chirwa, Paxie W.C. & Syampungani, Stephen, 2019. "Socio-economic factors influencing land-use and land-cover changes in the miombo woodlands of the Copperbelt province in Zambia," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 75-94.
    8. Lindy Charlery & Martin R. Nielsen & Henrik Meilby & Carsten Smith-Hall, 2016. "Effects of New Roads on Environmental Resource Use in the Central Himalaya," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 8(4), pages 1-20, April.
    9. Sadeghi, Azin & Zhunusova, Eliza & Günter, Sven & Dieter, Matthias, 2023. "Households' livelihood in restricted forest landscapes: What is the impact of contextual factors?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 154(C).
    10. Mazhar Biland & Alam Zeb & Ayat Ullah & Harald Kaechele, 2021. "Why Do Households Depend on the Forest for Income? Analysis of Factors Influencing Households’ Decision-Making Behaviors," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 13(16), pages 1-17, August.
    11. Dokken, Therese & Angelsen, Arild, 2015. "Forest reliance across poverty groups in Tanzania," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(C), pages 203-211.
    12. Meyer, Maximilian & Hulke, Carolin & Kamwi, Jonathan & Kolem, Hannah & Börner, Jan, 2022. "Spatially heterogeneous effects of collective action on environmental dependence in Namibia’s Zambezi region," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 159(C).
    13. Shyamsundar, Priya & Ahlroth, Sofia & Kristjanson, Patricia & Onder, Stefanie, 2020. "Supporting pathways to prosperity in forest landscapes – A PRIME framework," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    14. Wiebe, Pia Christine & Zhunusova, Eliza & Lippe, Melvin & Ferrer Velasco, Rubén & Günter, Sven, 2022. "What is the contribution of forest-related income to rural livelihood strategies in the Philippines' remaining forested landscapes?," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    15. Coomes, Oliver T. & Takasaki, Yoshito & Abizaid, Christian & Arroyo-Mora, J. Pablo, 2016. "Environmental and market determinants of economic orientation among rain forest communities: Evidence from a large-scale survey in western Amazonia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 129(C), pages 260-271.
    16. Nguyen, Trung Thanh & Do, Truong Lam & Bühler, Dorothee & Hartje, Rebecca & Grote, Ulrike, 2015. "Rural livelihoods and environmental resource dependence in Cambodia," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 120(C), pages 282-295.
    17. Torres, Bolier & Günter, Sven & Acevedo-Cabra, Ricardo & Knoke, Thomas, 2018. "Livelihood strategies, ethnicity and rural income: The case of migrant settlers and indigenous populations in the Ecuadorian Amazon," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 86(C), pages 22-34.
    18. Walelign, Solomon Zena & Charlery, Lindy & Smith-Hall, Carsten & Chhetri, Bir Bahadur Khanal & Larsen, Helle Overgaard, 2016. "Environmental income improves household-level poverty assessments and dynamics," Forest Policy and Economics, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 23-35.
    19. Charlery, Lindy & Walelign, Solomon Zena, 2015. "Assessing environmental dependence using asset and income measures: Evidence from Nepal," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 40-48.
    20. Belcher, Brian & Achdiawan, Ramadhani & Dewi, Sonya, 2015. "Forest-Based Livelihoods Strategies Conditioned by Market Remoteness and Forest Proximity in Jharkhand, India," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 66(C), pages 269-279.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolec:v:180:y:2021:i:c:s0921800920310405. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolecon .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.