The deterioration of grassland ecology is threatening the livelihood of herdsmen and increasing their rates of poverty. This study aims to explore the characteristics of herdsmen’s livelihood and the impact of livelihood capital and environmental perception on livelihood strategy selection. Based on 453 herdsmen households in the Province of Gansu and Qinghai, five types of livelihood capital were measured under the sustainable livelihoods framework. The influence of herdsmen’s livelihood capital on their decisions regarding their livelihood strategies was evaluated in multiple logistic functions. Meanwhile, hierarchical regression analysis and grouping regression methods were used to explore the moderating effects of two dimensions of environmental perception: ecological consciousness and sense of responsibility. The following results were obtained: First, all types of livelihood capital have a significant influence on the livelihood diversification of herdsmen; second, the direction and strength of these effects differ among types of livelihood capital. Moreover, environmental perception played a negative moderating role in the relationship between herdsmen’s livelihood capital and livelihood strategies. Therefore, it is expected to introduce policies ensuring the development of herdsmen’s livelihood capital and improve their environmental cognition, which can help realize the coordinated economic and ecological development of grassland.

Humans currently face a problematic ecological dilemma regarding economic growth. It is difficult to meet human needs by only studying economic growth created by artificial costs, and all countries need to pay attention to the task of improving the level of human welfare under the constraints of an ecological environment from the perspective of sustainable development. The focus of ecological wellbeing performance (EWP) is how to achieve the maximum welfare level output or achieve higher welfare level improvement with the fewest conversions of natural and ecological inputs. In this paper, we use the super-efficiency SBM model to measure the EWP of Chinese provinces and cities, traditional and spatial Markov probability transfer matrices are established based on time series analysis and spatial correlation analysis of the global Moran’s index, and the characteristics of the spatiotemporal variations of EWP are analyzed by comparing the matrices. The evolution trend for a certain future period is predicted, and the influences of geographical spatial patterns on the spatiotemporal evolution of EWP are discussed. On this basis, according to the calculation and analysis of the characteristics of China’s EWP, provinces and cities in China need to focus on improving their own resource utilization efficiency and strengthen environmental supervision to improve EWP. Finally, policy recommendations are put forward. First, special laws and regulations need to be introduced for resource utilization and ecological protection. The second recommendation is to promote and improve the mechanism of public participation in the rational utilization of resources and protection of the ecological environment. The third recommendation is to establish a dynamic monitoring system for resource utilization and ecological environmental protection. The fourth recommendation is to strengthen structural adjustment and accomplish high-quality economic development.

Taking the Giant Panda National Park as an example, this paper uses factor analysis to measure residents’ financial awareness and mediating effect models to investigate the influence paths of community governance, financial awareness, and residents’ willingness to participate in the construction and development of national parks. Finally, it suggests potential solutions for national park development and biodiversity conservation. The results indicated that financial awareness and community governance levels had a positive effect on residents’ willingness to participate, and satisfaction with community governance played a significant partially mediating role in their financial awareness, which in turn influenced their level of willingness.

In an attempt to resolve the increasingly severe grassland degradation, China has implemented a series of grassland protection policies. Herders are one of the key stakeholders in these policies, and their willingness to participate in grassland protection directly affects the effective implementation of these policies. We conducted a field survey of herders in Qinghai and Gansu Provinces to identify the factors that impact the willingness of herders to adopt these policies and then incorporated a number of these factors in the extension framework of the Institutional Analysis and Design (IAD) model. First, we analyzed the willingness of herders to adopt grassland protection policies using binary logistic regression. After dividing the herders into two categories based on whether or not they had participated in grassland protection, we repeated the binary regression analysis for both categories of herders. The results indicate that their willingness to adopt protection measures was influenced by their household characteristics, procedures and rules, the market environment, and cognitive reform. Herders who had not participated were mainly concerned about the impact of protection policies on household livelihoods and whether they would receive adequate subsidies. Based on this analysis, we understand that problems still exist with China’s grassland governance policies and have proposed strategies to improve these.

Based on trade data from 2005 to 2020, this study investigates the driving forces behind China’s grain virtual water (VW) import trade, with a particular focus on the role of the Belt and Road Initiative (BRI). By incorporating economic distance (ED) and institutional distance (ID) into the gravity model framework and applying a high-dimensional fixed-effects Poisson pseudo-maximum likelihood estimation method, the study offers new empirical insights. The results indicate that ED is negatively associated with virtual water trade (VWT) in grains, while ID exhibits an inverted U-shaped relationship with VWT. Furthermore, the BRI significantly moderates the effects of ED and ID, weakening their influence on VWT. Additionally, the initiative demonstrates a clear trade creation effect, promoting increased VW imports. These findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the mechanisms shaping VWT and offer valuable policy guidance for enhancing international cooperation under the BRI framework.