Abstract
Grassland property rights privatization has alleviated the problem of ‘the tragedy of the commons’ but led to an unintended ecological consequence—traditional nomadic modes declination. However, with the grassland rental market formation in countries with property rights privatization, grassland rental has reshaped the pattern of grassland allocation and provided opportunities for herders to optimize their grazing modes. Based on the survey data of herders in northern China, we theoretically analyze and empirically test grassland rental’s impact on herders’ rotational grazing behavior under the household responsibility system. The results show that grassland rental promotes herders’ rotational grazing, and the probability of individual rotational grazing is increased by 58.27%. By increasing the operated grazing grassland area and the number of grassland plots fenced, grassland rental promotes herders’ grassland endowment match with the large-scale livestock activity space and the number of grazing blocks required for rotational grazing, reduces the input cost and operation difficulty required for rotational grazing, and increase herders rotational grazing probability. Grassland rental’s impact on herder’s rotational grazing is heterogeneous, showing the dependence of the number of plots fenced and the scale of grazing grassland. It has a higher promotion effect on herders with more plots fenced; It cannot promote the generation of herders’ rotational grazing behavior when the rented grassland area fails to make the grassland operation scale reach the minimum threshold of rotational grazing. The study emphasizes the importance of developing a grassland rental market to promote the optimization of grazing modes in grassland privatization countries.
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Notes
Before grassland HRS, livestock and grassland were managed by communes, which employed herders (villagers in the community) and paid them wages.
The grassland rental rate equals the ratio of the rented grassland area to the operated grassland area.
The marginal effect at the sample means: 0.1346 + (−0.0047*3.011) = 0.1204.
18.3185*0.0018 = 0.0330.
1.3451*0.1204 = 0.1620.
The median and mean of plots fenced operated by sample herders are 3 and 3.01, respectively.
There are great differences in the quantity and quality of grazing grassland in different regions. Therefore, the median area of grazing grassland operated by sample herders in each county is used as the basis for the division. The median area of grazing grassland operated by herders in Tianzhu Tibetan Autonomous County, Sonid Left Banner, West Ujimqin Banner, Otog Banner, XilinHot, and Bordered Yellow Banner are 546.25 mu, 8200 mu, 2420 mu, 3000 mu, 5080 mu, and 1928 mu respectively.
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Funding
This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NO. 72303005, 72173097); Major Project of the National Social Science Foundation of China (No. 22&ZD083); China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (No. 2023M730071); the Chinese Academy of Engineering (NO. 2022-HZ-09).
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YS: Methodology, Data curation, Formal analysis, Writing - original draft, review & editing, Funding acquisition. CL: Investigation, Methodology, Software, Data curation, Visualization. MZ: Conceptualization, Supervision, Funding acquisition.
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Shi, Y., Li, C. & Zhao, M. Can Grassland Rental Lead to Herders’ Rotational Grazing Under the Grassland Household Responsibility System? Evidence from Pastoral Areas in Northern China. Environmental Management 73, 546–562 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01903-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00267-023-01903-z