农村居民对环境保护的认知程度及支付意愿研究——以纳板河自然保护区居民为例

Rural Residents’ Awareness of Environmental Protection and Willingness to Pay for Environmental Protection: A Case Study of the Nabanhe Nature Reserve

农村居民是否具有环保意识和环保支付意愿,研究文献中并没有形成共识。本文使用意愿调查评价法,在西双版纳纳板河自然保护区选取300户农村居民,采用不同的支付方式对纳板河保护区周边居民的支付意愿进行了调查。研究表明,农村居民对环境保护的重要性有一定的认知,但从认知到行动尚有一定的差距。保护区居民在环境保护问题上呈现出明显的"政府依赖型"特征。不同支付方式所揭示出的居民环保支付意愿存在很大差异。纳板河保护区居民更愿意以劳务的形式来为自己所享受的环境服务"买单"。以付费方式得出的总样本的平均支付意愿为46.88元/年,占户均收入的0.36%。以劳务的形式揭示的受访者的平均支付意愿为249.24元/年,占受访者户均年收入的1.94%,显著高于以付费方式表达的支付意愿。

There is no consensus on whether rural residents are willing to pay for environmental protection. Some people suggest that the rural residents are too poor to pay, or too illiterate to concern environmental protection, whereas others indicate that rural residents tend to be more reliant on the environment and natural resources and consequently they would pay attention to the status of the environment. With Contingent Valuation Method （CVM） the authors analyzed cognition and willingness of rural residents in the Nanbanhe Nature Reserve to pay for environmental protection in their community. Questions designed for surveys on 300 rural households in the Reserve were intended to investigate rural residents’ willingness to pay for conserving the environment. Some conclusions can be drawn. More than half of the residents consider that economic development is as important as environmental conservation, and about a quarter of the residents think that environmental conservation is more important than economic development. However, people are generally reluctant to act in environmental conservation for various reasons. One reason they raised is that they believe that the government should do the job. Other reasons include that those who damage the environment should do the job. This shows that rural residents have more cognition than action regarding environmental protection. Many rural residents believe that environmental protection is the responsibility of the government. The willingness to pay for environmental conservation varies greatly with different payment vehicles. Rural residents prefer to pay in the form of labor rather than cash. The willingness to pay in the form of cash is 46.88 Yuan/year/household accounting for 0.36% of the household income of the rural residents. In the form of labor the willingness to pay becomes 249.24 Yuan/year/household with a labor wage rate of 30 Yuan/day, accounting for 1.94% of the household income. In fact, rural residents’ willingness to pay in the form of labor seems to be sensitive to the wage rate. On the other hand, labor wage rates vary greatly with season. In busy seasons of farming, labor costs could be as large as 60 Yuan/day while in spare seasons it could be as low as 10 Yuan/day, even close to zero. We also performed a regression analysis to examine what play a key role in impacting rural residents’ willingness to pay. Results indicate that income, age, and education are the significant factors affecting it whereas gender appears to be an immaterial one as shown in other studies. It is interesting to note that young people tend to be more willing to pay for environmental conservation than the old.