Abstract: Grassland as China's largest terrestrial ecosystem has important significance to ecological security, biodiversity, animal husbandry and others. However, the grassland bio capacity is limited. With the continuously increased pressures from the population and social economy, the excessive use of grasslands lead to severe damages to the grasslands eco-environment, posing a threat to the regional overall ecosystem. To protect grasslands eco-environments, a graze ban policy, which was a grasslands ecological protection policy, was instituted for the grasslands of China in 2002. With the implementation of the policy, the grasslands have been largely restored. However new problems occurred during the policy implementation process. Exploring the efficiency and problems of grassland utilization in the farming-pastoral ecotone of Northern China can provide an important basis for future policy formulation, and it is of great significance to the ecological environment restoration and sustainable development in the farming-pastoral ecotone of Northern China. Based on the review of related literature and the study of typical grazing areas, this paper discussed the benefits and problems of the graze ban Policy, and used the method of rural household survey questionnaire to understand the policy support level of the farmers and herdsmen. We discovered that the bio-capacity of grasslands in farming-pastoral ecotone of Northern China was low, and the ecological footprint of grasslands was far beyond the bio-capacity of grassland, so that the ecological deficit was serious. Since the implementation of the graze ban policy, the grasslands eco-environment had been improved and the vegetation coverage had been increased. However, in some graze prohibited areas, the local governments could hardly implement the policy according to their local conditions, and the lag-behind of the infrastructure, the blurred boundaries of the grasslands and the insufficiency of the policy advocacy and supervision resulted in new grassland degradation which compromised to a large extent the ecological restoration of grassland. The graze ban policy had influenced the production and livelihood of farmers and herdsmen and some of them could not successfully complete the transformation of livelihood mode. The ecological compensation given to them in conducting the policy could not offset the loss caused by the policy, translating to a decrease in their incomes. The implementation of the policy had deepened the contradiction between the eco-environment and the livelihood of the farmers. Although the farmers and herdsmen were very satisfied with the improvement of the eco-environment brought by the police. Most of them believed that their livelihoods were more important than the eco-environment protection; therefore, most of the farmers and herdsmen were reluctant to accept the graze ban policy which meant a low support level of the policy. In executing the policy, it is necessary to continuously improve supporting facilities, strengthen supervision, increase the compensation standards, and provide more opportunities to help the farmers and herdsmen to transform their livelihood mode.

Key words: farming-pastoral ecotone of Northern China, the graze ban policy, ecological compensation, support level, farmers and herdsmen