退耕还林还草过程中的经济补偿问题探讨

The Economic Compensation Strategy in the Process of Turning Cultivated Land Back Into Forests and Grasslands (TCFG)

经济补偿作为一项政策措施 ,对保障当前西部开发进程中退耕还林还草工作的顺利展开 ,发挥着十分重要的作用。然而 ,作为我国植被生态建设中一个全新的举措 ,目前经济补偿政策的实施刚刚开始 ,有关的理论研究尚处于初步的探讨阶段。循着“为什么要补偿 ?→补偿多少 ?→如何补偿 ?”的思路 ,建立了经济补偿的概念模型 ,着重探讨了补偿标准的确定以及多层次补偿制度建立等问题 ,并对目前处于试点示范中的经济补偿政策进行了评述。

Increasing the ratio of vegetation coverage has been regarded as one of the key measures in controlling soil erosion and land desertification in the arid and semi-arid western regions of China. Clearing forests and grasslands for farming and cultivated land on steep slopes to resolve the insufficiency of food and economic income has been rooted in Chinese farmers' minds and government policy for hundreds of years. This has resulted in a large environmental deterioration in most regions of western China. The action of turning cultivated land on steep slopes back into forests and grasslands to improve the ecological and environmental conditions has been recognized and emphasized in the western development campaign (WDC) by the Chinese Central Government and is practiced in many western regions at present. To compensate farmers for the loss of income from this action, the Chinese Central Government has put forward a series of favorable policies and measures including economic compensation. The core of the economic compensation policy is that the Central Government offers seeds, saplings and cash as compensation to farmers who have turned part of their farmlands on steep slopes back into forests and grasslands. This includes offering 2 250 kilograms of grain annually to farmers for one hectare of farmland along the upper reach of the Yangtze River and 1500 kilograms of grain along the upper and middle reaches of the Yellow River. In addition, the government compensates at the value of 1 050 yuan RMB (US$126.5) for one hectare of farmland every year. This kind of compensation policy can stimulate Chinese farmers in western regions to support and participate in ecological reconstruction and environmental improvement willingly and actively. There is disagreement about the compensation policy which should be probed into thoroughly and urgently. In this paper, some critical issues relating to the economic compensation policy, including “why the farmers should be compensated?→how much to be compensated? → and how to compensate?” are discussed. In many regions of Western China, farmlands on steep slopes account for a high ratio of arable land, playing an important role in the food production and economic income of farmers. To return the cultivated land back to forests or grasslands, food and cash compensation is needed. The compensation policy aims at making up farmers' basic food and cash needs to push them to convert the farmlands, providing investment for ecological reconstruction action and promoting the land use pattern from traditional way to a new sustainable one. How much money the government should compensate to farmers is a very difficult question to answer, for many factors need to be considered at the same time. A Logistic growth curve concerning the economic compensation was created to describe the dynamic process of farmer's income during TCFG. An income element model was suggested to formulate different compensation standards, and five different results of compensation were found. On the issue of “how to compensate”, four aspects are discussed. Firstly, all kinds of favorable policies, especially the economic compensation measurements should be given to the farmers directly. Secondly, environmental conservation policies and rules should be kept consistent for a long period. Thirdly, great efforts should be made to change the farmers' land use patterns. Fourthly, different levels of compensation policy should be set up to get enough funds for compensation. The organizations at three levels, of the Central Government, neighboring regions and local government of where get ecological benefits from the TCFG, can be considered as sources of funds for compensation. In these different compensation systems, the contributions from the Central Government should decrease gradually and those from the neighboring regions and local government tax should increase accordingly.