A New Strategy to Solve “the Tragedy of the Commons” in Sustainable Grassland Ecological Compensation: Experience from Inner Mongolia, China

Based on the principle of “who protects and benefits will compensate”, in recent years, many Chinese herders have begun to voluntarily participate sustainable grassland ecological compensation by donating money. However, this traditional strategy may brought about “the tragedy commons”. A new described as “wealthy pay money, ordinary supervision, relevant departments post a list participants at end each month”, which was trialed Keshiketeng Banner, Inner Mongolia, China, attempts solve This is neither “Leviathan” nor “Privatization”; it creates third way for achieve spontaneous cooperation protecting ecology. article presents theoretical analysis framework experimental simulation method using strategy. Considering importance face culture gossip herders’ social lives, study used public goods game (PGG) model analyze experimentally simulate effect The simulated data show following: (1) Compared with strategy, promotes more effectively. It requires less time human capital from can mobilize compensation, leading emergence equilibrium among herders. (2) In total contributions are inversely proportional “reputation tolerance”, they directly “income level”, “total budget” “satisfaction emotion”. level tolerance” level” (3) advantage that robust changes exogenous coefficient. Our research contributes application PGG development various resources developing approaches mitigating