Ecological migration effects on the Tianchi Scenic Area in Xinjiang:from the perspective of migrant farmer families

As an important approach for relieving conflicts between ecosystems and human activities in the Tianchi Scenic Area, Xinjiang of China, an ecological migration policy was implemented, aiming to improve the regional ecological environment. The case of resettlement was closely related to the smooth implementation of the migration project. Based on the questionnaires and farmer family interviews, both changes in the ecological environment and the living conditions of migrant farmer families in the Tianchi Scenic Area were investigated in this study. The objectives were to assess the benefits of the ecological migration policy and to analyze the effects of ecological migration on migrant farmer families. The results showed that （1） awareness of the need for ecological environmental protection and the types of migrant families had a great influence on the willingness to migration; （2） since the implementation of the ecological migration project, the ecological environment in the Tianchi Scenic Area had improved significantly, particutarly in terms of returning farmland to forestry, while pressures on grassland had also been relieved to some extent; （3） the major income sources and occupations of the migrant farmer families changed, the range of their income sources declined, and their per capita incomes decreased at different degrees; and （4） nearly half of the farmer families were not satisfied with the living environment of new settlements and the decline in the quality of life had significant influences on the attitudes of migrants. In order to ensure the successful implementation of an ecological migration project, it is essential to enhance farmer awareness of needs for ecological environmental protection, and to solve resettlement problems properly.

The Drivers of Land Use Change in the Migration Area, Three Gorges Project, China: Advances and Prospects

This paper reviewed existing literatures on land use change since the demonstration phase of the Three Gorges Project and found that reservoir inundation, migration resettlement, urban relocation, and post-supporting construction were first paid more attention to, when analyzing the driving forces of land use change in the migration area. However, at the post-migration period （the end of migration resettlement）, above-mentioned drivers had not obviously driven land use change, but the evolutions of ＂migration demands＂ replacing them increasingly became the major drivers of land use change in the migration area. Therefore, the future priority fields of land use explanations in the mi- gration area, Three Gorges Project were （1） identifying the corresponding relationships between the spatial distributions of land use change and migration resettlement and indigenous inhabitants; （2） un- derstanding the change of ＂migration demands＂ and their causing ＂indigenous inhabitants＇ demands＂ being how to drive land use transforms; （3） finding the driving processes of the conflict and exclusion between immigrants and indigenous inhabitants, and the transfer of immigrants and indigenous in- habitants on land use change; and （4） measuring the dynamic feedback of ＂migration demands＂ at dif- ferent stages on the processes, directions and their corresponding impacts of land use change in order to building the coupling framework among ＂migration demands＂, driver behaviors, and land use. This paper presents a new access for the explanation of land use change and also supplies scientific proofs to obtain adaptive decision-making to optimize land use patterns in the migration area, Three Gorges Project.