Eliciting Herders’ Willingness to Accept Grassland Conservation: A Choice Experiment Design in Pastoral Regions of China

Top-down grassland conservation policies are widely used to protect grassland ecosystems from degradation in developing counties. However, an inability to meet local herders’ preferences when implementing such ecological policies may weaken their outcomes. Using a choice experiment design, this paper evaluated herders’ willingness to accept (WTA) different possible implementations of a grazing ban policy, which is an ongoing but inflexible grassland protection policy in China. The results showed that herders were more likely to accept a grazing ban policy that targets private benefits rather than public benefits. In particular, herder’s WTA decreased when the policy objective changed from improving private grassland productivity to protecting grassland wildlife (or preventing sandstorms). Additionally, broader coverage and a longer duration also increased herders’ WTA a grazing ban policy; i.e., herders preferred a grazing ban policy with less coverage and a shorter duration. Our heterogeneity analysis showed that herder’s WTA is not only associated with their socioeconomic characteristics, but also with their altruism. Herders with higher altruistic tendencies were more willing to engage in a gazing ban policy targeting public benefits. These findings offer valuable insight into potential methods of redesigning top-down grassland protection policies and incentivizing small herders to adapt to environmentally friendly practices in China or other countries with similar backgrounds.