Recently, a research team led by Professor Dong Shikui from the School of Grassland Science, in collaboration with a team led by Associate Professor Xu Yudan from the College of Grassland Science at Shanxi Agricultural University, published a paper in the internationally acclaimed journal, Journal of Cleaner Production (IF=11.1). The paper, entitled "Restoration actions associated with payment for ecosystem services promote the economic returns of alpine grasslands in China".

Global grassland degradation has prompted professionals and practitioners to critically consider about the future of grassland resources. Restoration actions related to payment for ecosystem services (PES) have been proposed as a possible approach to balancing grassland sustainable development and ecosystem service supply. Since 2005, approximately one billion U.S. dollars have been invested in the Three-River Headwater Region (TRHR) of China to restore 5.69 × 106 ha of degraded grasslands via grassland cultivation and fencing. Unfortunately, few literature has drawn valid and generalizable conclusions regarding the economic performance of these PES programs. Therefore, field data from multiple sites were collected to evaluate the economic returns of restoration actions, returns on investments (ROI), and trade-offs among ecosystem services of cultivated and fenced grasslands over different restoration years in the TRHR. The results revealed that PES-related restoration efforts in the TRHR had yielded a net profit of $14.34 billion, with $13.20 billion from the alpine meadow, $0.74 billion from the alpine steppe and $0.40 billion from the temperate steppe. These substantial economic can be attributed to the combined effects of the surge in specific ecosystem services and the synergistic improvement of all ecosystem services. The ROI of supporting service accounted for the largest proportion of ROI in total ecosystem services and exhibited drastic fluctuations with restoration years, whereas the ROI of other services either increased gradually or remained stable across different restoration periods. The trade-offs in ecosystem services varied greatly with grassland type. The research team observed an increasing synchronization of ecosystem services over time in the fenced alpine steppe, cultivated alpine meadow, and cultivated temperate steppe; whereas a similar trend was not detected in other grasslands. The research underscores the importance of incorporating herders' willingness, assessing restoration performance of grasslands and adopting more targeted and adaptive restoration actions in subsequent PES programs.

Dong Shikui from the School of Grassland Science, Beijing Forestry University is the first author of the paper, and Xu Yudan from the College of Grassland Science, Shanxi Agricultural University is the correspongding author. This work was supported by the National Key R&D Program of China (2021YFE0112400), the National Natural Science Foundation of China (32201389 and 32361143870), the Distinguished and Excellent Young Scholar Cultivation Project of Shanxi Agricultural University (2023YQPYGC06), and the Basic Research Program of Shanxi Province, China (202103021223172).

Paper link: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jclepro.2024.142439

Written by Dong Shikui
Translated and edited by Song He
Reviewed by Yu Yangyang