关键词: 甘南高原, 农户, 生计方式, 生活用能, 生态足迹

Abstract:

As the most important human factor to impact the environment, the farmer’s livelihood strategy decides the intervention measure and the intervention intensity to environment. Thus, understanding the impact of farmer’s livelihood on the environment and identifying the relationship between human livelihood and environment is the key to solve the environmental problem. In recent years, the relationship between farmer’s livelihood and environment has been the research focus of the sustainable development domain. Through stratified random sampling survey, participatory rural appraisal and investigation of plots, 217 households are investigated and sampled. Farmers are divided into 3 types: the households earning from farming, the off-farming, and both. From the farmer’s household energy consumption and ecological footprint, the article employs the investigation data to analyze the environmental impact of the farmers with different livelihood strategies in the Gannan Plateau. The results show: 1) The diversification level of farmers’ livelihood in the Gannan Plateau is low, and the farmer’s livelihood diversity index is only 1.84. The livelihood diversity index of the farmers in the farming-pastoral area reaches 2.10, but that of the farmers in the pure pasturing area is 1.54. Moreover, the non-agricultural level in the farming-pastoral area is higher than that of the other areas; 2) With the non-agricultural level improving, the farmer’s household energy consumption in the Gannan Plateau will decline. Among the farmers of different livelihood strategies, the energy consumption of the farmer household is 738.08 kgce, but those of the household with combined occupation and the off-farming household are 368.34 kgce and 260.49 kgce respectively. Furthermore, following the non-agricultural level increasing, the proportion of biomass energy consumption will reduce, but that of commercial energy consumption proportion will increase; 3) The farmer’s per capita ecological footprint in the Gannan Plateau will decline with the non-agricultural level improving. Among the farmers of different livelihood strategies, the per capita ecological footprint of the farmer household is 1.644 gha, but those of the household with combined occupation and the off farming household are 1.488 gha and 1.225 gha respectively. Except that the proportion of per capita grassland footprint will decrease, those of per capita forest footprint, building land footprint, water area and fossil energy land proportion will increase; 4) The farmers’ livelihood mode has remarkable influences on their ecological footprint, and increasing non-agricultural level will decrease the impact on the environment. Meanwhile, increasing the labour/householder education level will also cut down the impact on the environment, but improving family size and earning level will aggravate the impact on the environment. However, within the range of calculated data, the analysis result supports the environmental Kuznets curve hypothesis.

Key words: the Gannan Plateau, the farmers, livelihood strategy, the farmer’s energy consumption, ecological footprint