Rural Household Preferences for Active Participation in “Payment for Ecosystem Service” Programs: A Case in the Miyun Reservoir Catchment, China

Abstract

Many payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs, such as the Slope Land Conversion Program (SLCP), are passive and require full participation by impacted households. In contrast, this study considers the alternative of “active and incomplete” participation in PES programs, in which participants are not obliged to contract their own land, and have the right to select into the program or not. This type of program has been popular over the last decade in China; however, there have been few studies on the characteristics of willingness to participate and implementation. As such, this paper uses the Choice Experiment (CE) method to explore ways for inducing effective program participation, by analyzing the effects of different regime attributes. The case study used to analyze participation utility was the Jing-Ji Afforestation Program for Ecological and Water Protection (JAPEWP), a typical active-participation forestry PES program, and a key source of water near Beijing in the Miyun Reservoir Catchment (MRC). Analyzing rural household survey data indicated that the program faces a variety of challenges, including long-term maintenance, implementation performance, cost-effectiveness, and monitoring approaches. There are also challenges with one-size-fits-all payment strategies, due to ineffective program participation or imperfect implementation regimes. In response, this study proposes several policies, including providing secure and complete land tenure to the participants, creating more local off-farm employment opportunities, designing performance-based monitoring systems that are integrated with financial incentives, applying differentiated payment strategies, providing capacity building to support forestation activities, and establishing a comprehensive implementation regime that would address these challenges. These policy conclusions provide valuable lessons for other active-participation PES programs as well.

Estimation of Rural Households’ Willingness to Accept Two PES Programs and Their Service Valuation in the Miyun Reservoir Catchment, China

“…Meanwhile, decision-making is an activity dependent on human capital variables such as age and education, which can significantly impact the PES participation decision [64]; Household Size represents labour availability, which is often found to be important in determining PES program participation [65]. Household Income as a proxy of knowledge and experience was concluded as a significant determinant of PES participation though dependent on specific income level and program contexts [29,40]. Land, as the principal productive asset for rural households, has been commonly identified as a determinant of participation [66,67].…”

“…A proportion of off-farm employment demonstrates the development of local off-farm economy. In some sense, a higher population proportion of off-farm employment, resulting from a more advanced off-farm economy, might cause less reliance on traditional land-intensive agriculture [40,68]. Hence, local rural households might be more willing to participate in PES programs.…”

“…These results suggest that the Beijing respondents perceived the labor availability as a decision criterion, as they experience a lack of young and qualified labors. Especially for the rural areas around mega-cities like Beijing, along with the growing urbanization, an increasing number of rural labors have moved into cities to work as migrants so a majority of stay-at-home labors are often elderly and infirm [40,74]. In addition, the traditional cropping activities would cost more for labor relative to the forestry activities while not earning equal incomes [71].…”

“…However, the statistical insignificant results for Land Area variable may be caused by two reasons. On one hand, land area per capita within the MRC, cropland area (0.14 ha/person) in particular, is relatively large compared to the national level (0.08 ha/person) [40]. On the other hand, due to the hilly topography, the land often has a lower productivity so that local rural households cannot earn desirable income.…”

“…As the capital of China and a flourishing international mega-city, Beijing is facing an unparalleled challenge in water resources [38][39][40]. The Miyun Reservoir, Beijing's only surface water source for domestic water supply, is playing an increasingly crucial role for the urban water supply [41,42].…”