Linking sustainable livelihoods with sustainable grassland use and conservation: A case study from rural households in a semi-arid grassland area, China

Xiao Lan, Qin Zhang, Haili Xue, Haoguang Liang, Bojie Wang and Weijun Wang

Land Use Policy, 2021, vol. 101, issue C

Abstract: Livelihood is a complex system that includes environmental, economic, social, and institutional dimensions, driving the evolution of the relationship between individuals and geographical environment. Further research on how people value and envision their livelihoods may help to better develop plans and incentives aimed at protecting and restoring ecosystem services. Therefore, it is necessary to understand the current livelihoods status of local households, to identify underlying factors that affect their current and future livelihood strategy, thereby providing policy references for grassland optimization and the sustainable development of pastorists’ livelihoods. In this study, researchers collected data by surveying 427 households from the Hulunbuir grasslands of China. We find that the pastoral livelihood strategies currently are dominated by pastoral husbandry (pure pastoral husbandry or dominant pastoral husbandry) and supplemented by concurrent household occupations (dominant non-pastoral husbandry and non-pastoral husbandry); the households' future livelihood strategy is mainly to expand pastoral husbandry. Our analysis shows again, livelihood asset possession has a significant influence on pastoral families' current and future choices of livelihood strategies. In particular, the ownership of social assets, geographical advantage, and 'production assets', which consist of natural, physical, and financial assets, have significant influences on pastoral households' current livelihood strategy but non-significant impacts on their future livelihood strategy. Human assets and informational assets significantly influence both current and future livelihood strategies of pastoral households. We emphasize that livelihood assets can be the entry point for policies aiming to linking sustainable livelihoods with sustainable grassland use and conservation, particularly at a regional level.

Keywords: Pastoral households; Ecological protection; Sustainable livelihoods; Hulunbuir grasslands (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0264837720325242
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:lauspo:v:101:y:2021:i:c:s0264837720325242

DOI: 10.1016/j.landusepol.2020.105186

Access Statistics for this article

Land Use Policy is currently edited by Jaap Zevenbergen

More articles in Land Use Policy from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Joice Jiang ().