生态脱贫——山区农业县脱贫致富的有效途径——对四川苍溪县生态脱贫模式的分析

10多年来,四川苍溪县结合实际,立足资源优势,因地制宜,不断实践、探索、总结,走出了一条适合山区农村生态脱贫致富的道路,形成了生态脱贫的“苍溪模式”。本文旨在采用生态经济学理论,运用生态工程分析方法,对该模式生态经济的结构、功能进行分析,以探索适合山区农业县生态脱贫的有效途径。     

西部脆弱环境分布与贫困关系的研究

西部环境脆弱与贫困的关系是人与自然和谐发展、构建和谐社会的重要研究课题。通过对西部环境脆弱程度、环境脆弱带和贫困县的分布特征、贫困地区的经济情况和人口密度的分析,发现西部环境脆弱与贫困之间存在较为复杂的双向因果关系。这为西部制定脱贫、生态恢复等政策提供了较为可靠的理论依据。     

A sustainable development metric based on youth

Nearly two decades ago, the World Bank declared achieving sustained and equitable development to be the greatest challenge facing the human race. In this article, an index of youth investment (IYI) is proposed to highlight children and the intergenerational dimension of sustainable development. The index incorporates quality-adjusted measures for child health and education. Comparisons with two complementary indicators of sustainable development, the human development index (HDI) and the adjusted net saving rate (AS), are made. A cross-section of 34 nations for 2006 is used as an illustration. A discussion of policies for promoting sustainable development through investing in children concludes the article.     

Climate change and poverty in Africa

Africa is most vulnerable to climate change, although it makes the least contribution to factors that result in global and regional climatic changes. High levels of vulnerability and low adaptive capacity across the continent have been linked to, among other things, poverty. This paper discusses and analyses the relationship between climate change and poverty in Africa. It investigates the relationship between climate change and poverty patterns in Africa, analyses the resultant impact, and discusses potential adaptation policies for moderating the consequences of climatic changes on poverty in the region. The record shows that climate change is happening. What is not discussed or is little researched is the potential devastating impact of climate change on socio-economic development in Africa and the policy measures available to the continent for adaptation.     

Disarming the population bomb

This paper argues for a renewed international focus on managed population reduction as a key enabler of sustainable development. The paper presents development data that demonstrate why population reduction should be elevated to share top priority with poverty alleviation, as the two over-arching goals of international development strategy. The critical analysis put forth in this paper argues that the current ‘unsustainable’ approach to sustainable development stems from (1) ‘empty world’ economic growth theory applied to a ‘full world’, which is (2) supported and driven by socioeconomic incentives to expand population, (3) justified through flawed interpretation of demographic transition theory, (4) bolstered by the exaggerated efficacy of environmental economic theory applied in a resource-constrained world, (5) insulated from challenge by limitations of scientific knowledge and (6) perpetuated by herd behavior. This paper concludes that failure to reduce global population will inhibit attainment of poverty alleviation and worsen environmental degradation.     

A Revealed Preference Approach to Estimating Supply Curves for Ecosystem Services: Use of Auctions to Set Payments for Soil Erosion Control in Indonesia

Abstract:  To supply ecosystem services, private landholders incur costs. Knowledge of these costs is critical for the design of conservation-payment programs. Estimating these costs accurately is difficult because the minimum acceptable payment to a potential supplier is private information. We describe how an auction of payment contracts can be designed to elicit this information during the design phase of a conservation-payment program. With an estimate of the ecosystem-service supply curve from a pilot auction, conservation planners can explore the financial, ecological, and socioeconomic consequences of alternative scaled-up programs. We demonstrate the potential of our approach in Indonesia, where soil erosion on coffee farms generates downstream ecological and economic costs. Bid data from a small-scale, uniform-price auction for soil-conservation contracts allowed estimates of the costs of a scaled-up program, the gain from integrating biophysical and economic data to target contracts, and the trade-offs between poverty alleviation and supply of ecosystem services. Our study illustrates an auction-based approach to revealing private information about the costs of supplying ecosystem services. Such information can improve the design of programs devised to protect and enhance ecosystem services.     

The unusual suspects? Perception of underlying causes of anthropogenic climate change in coastal communities in Cambodia and Tanzania

Public perception of the underlying causes of anthropogenic climate change is a complex and subjective issue that is critical to effective risk communication. This issue is important to scientists and policymakers because of the role of individual perceptions in influencing their protective behaviour towards risk (e.g., the adoption of climate risk reduction and mitigation strategies). This cross-sectional study elucidated people's perceptions of the underlying causes of human-induced climate change in coastal communities in Cambodia and Tanzania. The multinomial logistic regression model was based on a geographically and demographically stratified national sample of 3,706 individuals conducted between March and September 2013. The distribution of the fundamental causes of anthropogenic climate change in the pooled sample was deforestation (29%), overpopulation – births and immigration (18%), greenhouse gas emissions (12%), illegal resource extraction (14%), and God's will and transgressing cultural norms (26%). Few people in both countries believed that, the usual suspect, greenhouse gas emission was the fundamental cause of anthropogenic climate change. The number of poor rural residents who indicated that deforestation was the major underlying cause of climate change was approximately three times more than members of the same sub-group who noted that greenhouse gas emissions were the underlying cause of climate change. People who had tertiary education were less likely to consider God's will and transgressing cultural norms as the underlying cause of anthropogenic climate change rather than attributing it to greenhouse gas emissions. Therefore, it is imperative to mainstream climate change into educational curricula in both countries.     

Reframing the concept of alternative livelihoods

Alternative livelihood project (ALP) is a widely used term for interventions that aim to reduce the prevalence of activities deemed to be environmentally damaging by substituting them with lower impact livelihood activities that provide at least equivalent benefits. ALPs are widely implemented in conservation, but in 2012, an International Union for Conservation of Nature resolution called for a critical review of such projects based on concern that their effectiveness was unproven. We focused on the conceptual design of ALPs by considering their underlying assumptions. We placed ALPs within a broad category of livelihood‐focused interventions to better understand their role in conservation and their intended impacts. We dissected 3 flawed assumptions about ALPs based on the notions of substitution, the homogenous community, and impact scalability. Interventions based on flawed assumptions about people's needs, aspirations, and the factors that influence livelihood choice are unlikely to achieve conservation objectives. We therefore recommend use of a sustainable livelihoods approach to understand the role and function of environmentally damaging behaviors within livelihood strategies; differentiate between households in a community that have the greatest environmental impact and those most vulnerable to resource access restrictions to improve intervention targeting; and learn more about the social–ecological system within which household livelihood strategies are embedded. Rather than using livelihood‐focused interventions as a direct behavior‐change tool, it may be more appropriate to focus on either enhancing the existing livelihood strategies of those most vulnerable to conservation‐imposed resource access restrictions or on use of livelihood‐focused interventions that establish a clear link to conservation as a means of building good community relations. However, we recommend that the term ALP be replaced by the broader term livelihood‐focused intervention. This avoids the implicit assumption that alternatives can fully substitute for natural resource‐based livelihood activities.     

邻里效应作用下的人口流动与中国农村贫困动态

改革开放以来,我国扶贫取得了举世瞩目的成就。但是,要实现习近平主席提出的到2020年全面建成小康社会,扶贫任务依然艰巨。在传统扶贫政策的效力日渐式微的情况下,我们亟需探讨扶贫政策的新方式,也需要更深入挖掘政策能有效作用于贫困人口的传导机制和途径。本文认为,邻里效应是一种通过影响贫困者行为进而影响贫困动态的传导机制之一。基于此,本文采用中国健康与营养调查(CHNS)1991-2011年共8年的面板数据,使用非线性的两阶段面板Probit模型,研究邻里效应作用下的人口流动与中国农村贫困的动态变迁。结论显示,邻里效应对个体的流动决策与贫困的动态变迁具有非常显著的作用力,即村中人口流动状况对个体决定是否流动具有显著的影响,只有当村流动人口比例超过某个临界值时,个体才会选择流出,且人口流动会降低贫困发生的可能性。村级或家户的贫困程度越高,个体流出的可能性越低。进而,邻里效应传导作用下的低人口流动和高贫困之间的相互影响导致了地区贫困的持久性与贫困聚集现象。因此,政府在实施传统扶贫政策时,需要充分利用邻里效应的作用,将贫困者行为选择纳入到一个正向的循环加强机制中,使得个体走出持久性贫困和地区跳出贫困陷阱。     

IFAD中国项目精准脱贫绩效评价:基于农民人均收入视角

基于课题组在7省区1 356农户的调查问卷数据,采用双差分析模型对IFAD项目的扶贫绩效进行了测度;选用人均纯收入作为贫困代理指标,并采用倾向得分匹配法对项目干预的净效应进行了分析,分别采用核匹配和半径匹配(0.001)方法测算了项目的干预效果,定量评价了联合国IFAD中国项目对项目区受益人精准脱贫的实际贡献。研究结果显示:1IFAD项目脱贫效果显著:IFAD项目的实施对项目区贫困农户脱贫率的净贡献为18.71%,由于IFAD项目实施而摆脱贫困的受益人总数达到80.746万人,其中直接受益人46.113 7万人,间接受益人为34.632 3万人;2从收入结构来看,IFAD项目干预对贫困农户种植业收入增长的影响最大:采用Di D、包含控制变量的Di D、加权最小二乘Di D和PSM方法分析的结果显示,IFAD项目实施使项目受益人的种植业收入人均增长了1 031.15元,且在0.05的水平上显著;3从家庭特征来看,市场便捷程度和户主学历对IFAD项目干预效果的影响最大。基于以上研究结论,本文提出了旨在提高IFAD中国项目脱贫绩效的政策建议:1应充分发挥联合国IFAD项目精准脱贫的示范效应;2加快贫困地区农业产业结构升级以优化贫困户的收入结构;3进一步加强贫困地区道路和教育等基础设施建设。