The impact of ecological compensation policy on the livelihood resilience of farmers around nature reserves and policy recommendations

Based on the sustainable livelihood framework, analyzing the relationship between ecological compensation policy and farmers' livelihood resilience is of great significance for ensuring the effectiveness of ecological compensation policy implementation and improving farmers' well-being. Taking farmers in the surrounding areas of Maoershan Nature Reserve in Guangxi as a research object, and using micro data from household surveys and structural equation model, this study explores the impact mechanism of ecological compensation policy on farmers' livelihood resilience, with focus on examining the mediating effects of coping behavior and the moderating effects of endogenous motivation. The conclusions are as follows: (1) Ecological compensation policy is closely related to farmers' livelihood capital, coping behavior, and livelihood resilience. The ecological compensation policy has a positive impact on farmers' livelihood capital, which enhances their coping behavior and livelihood resilience, and coping behavior strengthens their livelihood resilience. (2) The livelihood capital and coping behavior of farmers play a significant mediating role in the mechanism of livelihood resilience, and there exists a chain mediated impact path. Livelihood capital can mediate the relationship between ecological compensation and coping behavior, as well as the relationship between ecological compensation and livelihood resilience. Furthermore, coping behaviors mediate the relationship between livelihood capital and livelihood resilience. (3) The endogenous driving force plays an important moderating role in the relationship between ecological compensation and farmers' financial capital, and the moderating effect of spiritual driving force is stronger than that of capable driving force. This is mainly reflected in the fact that the stronger the motivation of farmers to actively participate in ecological compensation, the stronger the positive moderating effect of spiritual driving force, and that the weaker the dependence of farmers' livelihood strategies on agricultural production, the stronger the positive moderating effect of instrumental driving forces.