林草科技培训对生态护林员生计脆弱性的影响

The Impact of Forest and Grass Technology Training on the LivelihoodVulnerability of Ecological Forest Rangers

基于安徽省潜山市458个生态护林员2021年度相关信息构成的微观调查数据,使用基准回归识别出生态护林员生计脆弱性的影响因素后采用倾向得分匹配比较分析林草科技培训对生计脆弱性的具体降低效应并进一步分析其教育异质性。结果发现:林草科技培训与各项生计资本对生态护林员的生计脆弱性具有显著负向影响;采用PSM模型缓解了基准回归估计效应较大的偏差后,真实效应值在5.0%左右,劳动力均完成义务教育组所降低的处理效应要比未均完成组的生态护林员多1.0%。据此,建议政府应该完善林草科技培训体系,有重点地、针对性地提升生态护林员的生计资本,同时建议生态护林员积极参与林草科技培训,通过非学历教育来提升文化水平,增强生计风险感知能力,促进自身完成生计转型,使林草科技培训能够充分均衡地保障生态护林员的基本生计,而且有能力发展可持续生计,同时还能有余力通过拓展其他林业相关生计来完成生计策略多样化转型,以摆脱生计脆弱,实现生计可持续,抵御返贫风险。

⑴Background——China s ecological forest ranger policy protects the forest-dominated ecological environment,and at the same time,it provides public welfare jobs so that people with vulnerable livelihoods can find jobs nearby and receive a certain amount of subsidy income.Forest and grass technology training is an important way to provide ecological forest rangers with basic forest and grass knowledge and improve their livelihood skills.⑵Methods——The research data came from the field survey of ecological forest ranger policy carried out by the research group in Qianshan City,Anhui Province from June to August 2022,and a total of 458 questionnaires were obtained in this survey.The livelihood vulnerability of ecological forest rangers was selected as the explained variable,the forest and grass technology training was selected as the core explanatory variable,whether the labor forces have completed compulsory education or not and the average years of education of the labor forces were selected as the instrumental variables,and the ecological forest rangers own livelihood capital was selected as the control variable.At first,baseline regression was used to identify the factors affecting the livelihood vulnerability of ecological forest rangers,and then propensity score matching was used to compare and analyze the specific reduction effect of forest and grass technology training on livelihood vulnerability.Finally,the heterogeneity of education was further analyzed.⑶Results——Whether the ecological forest rangers participate in the forest and grass technology training or not and their livelihood capital had a significant negative impact on the livelihood vulnerability of ecological forest rangers.In the OLS baseline regression model,the effect value was-0.156.However,in the PSM model,the effect value was-0.049,which indicated that the estimated results obtained by the baseline regression were biased.Although both effects were negative,the ordinary OLS regression used in baseline regression would lead to a larger estimated effect due to the endogeneity problem,while PSM method could better alleviate the endogeneity problem.The participation of the ecological forest rangers in forest and grass technology training could significantly reduce the livelihood vulnerability of the ecological forest rangers by 4.88%.The true effect value was about 5.0%after the robust estimation using multiple matching methods.The impact of forest and grass technology training on the livelihood vulnerability of the ecological forest rangers was heterogeneous in education.The mean effect value of the group in which the labor forces had all completed compulsory education was 5.4%,while the mean effect value of the group in which the labor forces had not completed compulsory education was 4.4%.⑷Conclusions and Discussions——The forest and grass technology training not only enables the ecological forest rangers to maintain their basic livelihoods,enables them to develop sustainable livelihoods,but also enables them to diversify their livelihood strategies through the development of other forest-related livelihoods,in order to get rid of livelihood vulnerability,achieve sustainable livelihoods and resist the risk of falling back into poverty.In order to achieve this goal,based on the above analysis,the following policy recommendations are put forward:First,accurately identify the risk of ecological forest rangers returning to poverty,and improve the forestry and grass technology training system and mechanism.Second,help the ecological forest rangers to enhance their own livelihood capital.Third,identify the ecological forest rangers with inadequate education levels and focus on helping them.