Potential Use of Willingness to Accept (WTA) to Compensate Herders in Maqu County, China, for Reduced Stocking

Abstract

In grassland areas subject to degradation caused by overgrazing such as the Maqu grasslands, excess livestock could be removed in order to balance available forage and animal numbers. As the number of animals owned by a herder family represents wealth, income, lifestyle, and culture, reducing livestock numbers is problematic and some form of compensation is required to encourage change. Willingness to accept compensation (WTA) was assessed with the use of contingent valuation (CV)
methodology to estimate the value that herder families place on the livestock numbers that lead to overgrazing. The minimum acceptable compensation was estimated as 3 717 RMB (~$555) per head of cattle and 503 RMB (~$75) per head of sheep at 2005 prices. The total compensation required for herder families in Maqu was estimated to be between 2.53108 RMB and 3.73108 RMB at 2005 prices to reduce stocking to levels considered sustainable based on an estimate of 53105 sheep overgrazing equivalents in 2006.