Impacts Of Foresters’ Livelihood Capital On Their Income From Participating In Forest Carbon Sequestration Projects

With the progression of targeted poverty alleviation and ecological civilization construction,forest carbon sequestration plays an increasingly important role in ecological improvement and poverty alleviation in poverty-stricken areas.As southwestern ethnic provinces,Sichuan and Yunnan,with a large number of ethnic groups,are typical ethnic enclaves.Due to the high degree of overlapping between ethnic minority areas,ecologically fragile areas and poverty-stricken areas,and the relatively scarce development opportunities in ethnic minority areas,the implementation of forest carbon sequestration projects in ethnic minority areas has great potential for improving ecology and alleviating poverty.Forest carbon sequestration project areas of Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces are located in resource-rich remote mountainous areas which are ideal for vegetation growth.The remote location of the projects hinders the arrival of agricultural investment projects to a certain extent,holding back the development of project areas.Under such circumstances,the development of forest carbon sequestration projects has great potential for promoting the income increase of rural households in the project areas.Through pre-investigation,it is found that the incomes of rural households participating in the project with different livelihood capital richness are different.This study takes forest carbon sequestration project areas of Ganluo and Yuexi County of Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture in Sichuan Province and Tengchong City of Yunnan Province as research sample areas to analyze the impact of rural households’ livelihood capital on their income from participation in forest carbon sequestration projects,which is aimed at investigating the impact mechanisms of livelihood capital on income from participation in forest carbon sequestration projects.Also,based on the impact,this study aims to obtain some useful enlightenment on how to increase rural households’ income from participation in the projects and how to achieve the healthy development of the projects,so as to maximize the poverty alleviation function of the projects and achieve the sustainable development.Guided by livelihood capital theory,theory of rural household’ behavior and theory of behavioral economics,based on the research data of Sichuan and Yunnan Provinces,this paper firstly uses AHP and weighted summation formula to compute the livelihood capital values of rural households in sample areas,so as to have a clear picture of the richness of rural households’ livelihood capitals.Furthermore,through the multivariate linear regression model,this paper explores the impact of rural livelihoods’ capital on their income from participation in forest carbon sequestration projects and draws the following two conclusions on the basis of the empirical analysis:(1)There are some differences in the richness of five livelihood capitals of rural households.Human capital,material capital and social capital of the interviewed households in sample areas are relatively abundant,while natural capital and financial capital are scarcer.The difference of human capital endowment among the interviewed households is the largest,followed by material capital and social capital,while the distinction of natural capital and financial capital among households is the smallest.(2)The effects of different types of livelihood capitals on the participating income vary.Controlling geographical differences,regarding general livelihood capitals,the richness of natural capital and material capital plays a positive role in promoting the benefits rural households get from participating in the projects.However,the richness of human capital,financial capital and social capital impedes the attainment of participating income.Based on the conclusions,some enlightenment is obtained.Indication for the follow-up research is also put forward.It is believed that follow-up studies can use dynamic data to perform empirical analysis,and are advised to explore the interactive relationship between rural households’ livelihood capital and their income from participation in the projects.