Study On The Formation Mechanism And Governance Of Ecological Poverty In Four Prefectures Of Southern Xinjiang

Poverty is a social development issue,and will remain a problem as long as social stratification exists.China completely solved the problem of absolute poverty in rural areas in2020 under the current standards,but the relative poverty remains and does not disappear with absolute poverty eliminated.In particular,the impact of ecological vulnerability in poor areas still remains as a special type of relative poverty.The No.1 Central Document of 2022 clearly states that one of the bottom lines of the current rural work is to forestall a large-scale reemergence of poverty,to consolidate the results of poverty eradication and to promote new progress in rural revitalization.Therefore,theoretical and practical research in the field of poverty remains a focus in the issues relating to "Agriculture,Rural Areas & Rural People".In view of the importance of poverty governance in rural revitalization,it is important to explore the factors and mechanisms affecting ecological poverty,and through the analysis of these influencing factors,adopt effective mechanisms and methods to improve the efficiency of poverty governance and forestall a large-scale reemergence of poverty,so as to promote the rural revitalization strategy.On the basis of the review and analysis of such theories as "the vicious circle theory of poverty","ecological vulnerability theory","sustainable development theory" and "agroeconomics theory",as well as the literature on the relationship between ecological environment and poverty and its influencing factors,this study constructs an ecological poverty analysis framework for in-depth research.Excel2010 and stata15.0software was used for statistical descriptions and correlation analyses of the research data to explore the factors and mechanisms affecting farmers’ income and regional economic and social development at the micro level of ecological resources,and to systematically explore and answer the following three questions: firstly,what are the constraints of ecological environment in different regions and at different degrees on poverty? Secondly,which of the many ecological factors in a region have a more significant constraining effect? Thirdly,how and to what extent can the external effects such as the adjustment of socio-economic development policies,the investment in fixed assets and the improvement of public service capacity alleviate the constraints of the ecological environment on rural socio-economic development?The theoretical analysis and empirical study led to the following conclusions:(1)Ecological poverty is an issue that has been deepened in understanding on the basis of multidisciplinary research on geography and poverty,environment and poverty,and human-earth theory.Ecological poverty should be studied by combining human-earth systems theory and the principles of sustainable development,and by integrating the three elements of "environment","economy" and "society" into a systematic understanding.Thus,an analytical framework of natural environment(E)-economy(E)-society(S)can be constructed to study ecological poverty in a more comprehensive and in-depth manner.The study concludes that the complexity of ecological poverty lies in the fact that the imbalance of the ecological environment causes the imbalance of economic and social development,and the logical relationship is that the lack of endowment of the "ecological environment" causes the lag of economic and social development,which ultimately leads to a state of relative poverty.(2)33 counties and cities in the four prefectures of southern Xinjiang were taken as research samples for constructing a model of coupling environment,economy and society,and findings showed that the advantages and disadvantages of the natural environment are directly related to farmers’ income and the comprehensive economic and social development of the region.The more fragile the natural environment is,the more the economic and social development of the region lags behind.Moreover,with the spatial distribution difference of natural environment,regional ecological poverty also shows obvious spatial characteristics.According to the empirical results of 33 counties and cities in the four prefectures of southern Xinjiang,ecological poverty shows a combination of "discrete distribution" and "aggregated distribution",with a spatial heterogeneity characterized by "mild in the north and severe in the south,severe in the east and mild in the west".(3)Based on a scientific understanding of the spatial-temporal variation of ecological poverty,the causes of this dynamic change were further analyzed by constructing an OLS regression model,which found that good agricultural production conditions,such as the length of the frost-free period,the amount of land resources and the density of rural population,all contribute significantly to farmers’ net income per capita.The impact of vegetation cover on agriculture is mainly through its effect on the soil,which in turn affects agricultural production conditions.Temperature,population density,arable land per capita,water resources and natural disasters all have a significant effect on farmers’ income.In particular,the quantile model found that these ecological factors directly affect agricultural production conditions and have a particularly significant impact on low-income farmers,suggesting that farmers’ incomes in the four southern-Xinjiang prefectures are highly dependent on agriculture and particularly sensitive to ecological factors.Topographical relief and distance from markets were not significant at the 0.1%,1% and 5% levels.The analysis suggests that these four southern prefectures have a relatively low degree of marketisation and remain relatively closed "agricultural islands",not yet penetrating into the larger surrounding markets,and also indicating that the surrounding markets are less able to drive the countryside.The comprehensive index of socio-economic development is significantly influenced by geographical location and distance to markets,in addition to factors such as land,water and natural disasters.(4)Based on the analysis of Paul Romer and Robert Lucas Endogenous Growth Theory,the endogenous economic growth model was constructed with ecological resource capacity as the endogenous variable and agricultural investment,human capital,industrial restructuring and transport accessibility as the exogenous variables.The study finds that the constraints of the ecological environment on farmers’ income and level of economic and social development will gradually become weaker with the increase of external factor supply.In the regression analysis of farmers’ income,the impact of the ecological environment shows a "U" trend,and the impact on economic and social development shows a diagonal "" trend,and the degree of impact gradually decreases.Again,it is confirmed that the existence of eco-environmental constraints,but in the case of exogenous input,such constraint effects are gradually weakened.From the significance of specific external input factors,the impact of human capital improvement is the most pronounced,followed by traffic accessibility,agricultural fixed asset investment and regional restructuring.(5)The analysis of the formation mechanism has laid the foundation for the governance of ecological poverty.The governance framework of ecological poverty still focuses on the coordinated development of environment,economy and society,and an ecological poverty governance mechanism is constructed on the basis of protection – development-safeguard.The research shows that the protection and restoration mechanism of ecological environment is the foundation of ecological poverty governance.On the basis of understanding the complete ecosystem,continuous geographical units and the sustainable needs of economic and social development,we should make a systematic planning for ecological protection and restoration;The capitalization of ecological resources and the development of ecological economy are the driving forces of ecological poverty governance,reflecting the original intention of green development of "Lucid waters and lush mountains are invaluable assets";The basis of ecological poverty is collaborative governance and the linkage of interest chains,which avoid fragmentation in the process of governance through collaborative mechanisms and promote the marketisation of ecological products to benefit more farmers and promote comprehensive regional economic and social development through the linkage of interests.Institutional improvement is a safeguard mechanism for ecological poverty.Finally,based on the systematic development idea of "mountains,water,forests,fields,lakes,grasses and sands",countermeasures and suggestions for the governance of ecological poverty in the four southern-Xinjiang prefectures are proposed in terms of managing the environment,developing ecological economy,strengthening resource integration,improving institutional construction and enhancing personal capital.