Farmers’ Perception of the Decade-Long Grazing Ban Policy in Northern China: A Case Study of Yanchi County

Yong Chen and Lihua Zhou
Additional contact information
Yong Chen: Cold and Arid Regions Environmental and Engineering Research Institute, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Lanzhou 730000, China
Lihua Zhou: Institutes of Science and Development, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100190, China

Sustainability, 2016, vol. 8, issue 11, 1-12

Abstract: This study analyzes farmers’ perception of grazing restriction policies, grassland environment and ecological management following the implementation of environmental protection policies in northern China. Understanding farmers’ attitudes and their causes will hopefully aid in the creation and execution of future policies. One hundred and thirty-five households were surveyed at three occasions over the course of a decade to explore the causes and processes of farmers’ perception. Farmers’ ecological awareness tends to be short term. In areas with a degraded environment, farmers were eager to implement policies to improve the environment and recognized the positive impact of the grazing ban policy (GBP). However, as conditions improved, farmers’ recognition and acceptance of the GBP became negative. Although farmers recognized the benefits of the GBP, they showed little awareness of the long-term process of environmental governance. As can be seen from the farmers’ ecological awareness and their attitudes toward the GBP, they are more inclined to value short-term economic interest than ecological protection. We suggest that good environmental protection policy must take into account the ecological and economic interests of farmers.

Keywords: perception; attitudes; awareness; grazing ban policy; Yanchi County (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: O13 Q Q0 Q2 Q3 Q5 Q56 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2016
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/11/1113/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/8/11/1113/ (text/html)

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:gam:jsusta:v:8:y:2016:i:11:p:1113-:d:81736

Access Statistics for this article

Sustainability is currently edited by Ms. Alexandra Wu

More articles in Sustainability from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().