Multi-Dimensional Social Capital and Farmer’s Willingness to Participate in Environmental Governance

Background The construction and development of formal institutions has been lagging behind in rural areas of China for decades, so the role of social capital is particularly important. In the context of China’s implementation of the rural revitalization strategy, considering the impact of social capital on farmers’ willingness to participate in environmental governance is profitable to the improvement of rural human settlement environment and the increase in the implementation efficiency of relevant policies. Methods Based on the micro-data of villages in Anhui Province, this paper uses the logit model to explore the effects of social capital of trust, network, and norm on farmers’ willingness to participate in environmental governance. Results The results show that both network social capital and norm social capital have a significant effect on farmers’ willingness to participate in environmental governance, and the marginal effect of network social capital is greater than that of norm social capital. After controlling both social network and social norm, however, the effect of social trust is not evident. With the improvement in farmers’ schooling level and income level, the impact of social network and social norms on farmers’ willingness to participate become gradually insignificant, and social capital appears to be “the capital of the poor.” Conclusion Given the above results, we can improve the willingness of farmers to participate in the village environmental governance and lay a solid foundation for the improvement of rural human settlement environment by cultivating village trust, broadening social network, and creating a social custom of mutual benefit. Implications for Conservation Effective environmental governance is an important measure to achieve sustainable development goals. Farmers’ willingness to participate in environmental governance plays a significant role in improving the effectiveness of rural environmental governance. Accordingly, the study of how social capital affects farmers’ willingness to participate provides not only valuable enlightenment for rural environmental governance and protection, but also a long path for sustainable development and biodiversity protection.