Evaluation of ecological migrants’ adaptation to their new living area in Three-River Headwater wetlands, China

AbstractEcological migration is an important policy for sustainable ecosystem management, which usually relocates a large number of residents from their traditional living regions with high ecological sensitivity to other areas with low ecological sensitivity as part of the government's initiative to restore and recover seriously degraded ecosystems. Evaluation of ecological migrants’ adaptation to their new living area is essential for assessing the success of migration and directing the design and implementation of measures to improve the effectiveness of migration. In this research, the adaptation of ecological migrants to their new living area was investigated and analyzed in Three-River Headwater region, a typical and significant migration area in China. The questionnaire survey method was applied. Three many issues related to migrants’ adaptation were discussed, namely the determination of suitable migration population size, the choice of follow-up industry and the integration issue in ecological migration. The result indicated that the majority of migrants could adapt to their new living places and could live with a better life standard. In spite of this, the unsuitability for new work was the major problem for the ecological migration with 72% people unable for their new work