688 intervention. Rural migration can bring either dramatic gains or losses to the long-term conservation of local natural resources. Thus, future rural environmental man- agement policies should aim at providing favorable institutional conditions to facilitate the potentially positive environmental outcomes of labor migration while avoiding or minimizing the possible negative ones. The relationships among rural migration processes, house- hold livelihoods, and rural environmental changes are influenced by the broader social and economic contexts at national and regional levels. Under the Household Responsi- bility System in rural China, farmers own farmland in the name of the local village community and do not have individual land property rights. Thus, a migrant household cannot sell its farmland even if all of its active labor members move to urban areas for nonagricultural jobs. At the same time, labor-migrant households are unwilling to give up their land because it is seen as a safety net against insecure urban employment. As a consequence of household labor shortages, labor-migrant households often under-cultivate or even abandon their farmland. The relationship between agricultural land use and the rural environment is especially complicated in hilly-mountainous areas of developing countries. While rural-to-urban labor migration and abandonment of farmland may facilitate forest transition and ecological recovery, abandoned lands may fail to rehabilitate naturally because they have been irreversibly transformed. Integrated resource management plans should be implemented promptly to optimize the ecological effects of rural labor migration and concomitant household agricultural adjustment. Policies encouraging ecosystem recovery on abandoned land (e.g., planting trees or other perennials) can promote sustainable land use and reduce water and soil erosion. Meanwhile, it is of great importance to develop holistic policies and programs to enhance both rural people’s socioeconomic welfare and rural environmental sustainability. A better incorporation of poli- cies on rural labor migration with development and environ- mental conservation programs in China (e.g., poverty reduction policies and the Grain for Green Program) can further improve ecological restoration in rural areas.8 This analysis shows that local off-farm work households are quite similar to labor-migrant households in terms of 8 The dual urban-rural structure and the rigid household registration system are commonly recognized as major underlying determinants of the large-scale circular rural-to-urban labor migration flows. In June 2007, Chongqing was designated the largest experimental area for the coordinated and balanced urban-rural development reform in China. Although the social and economic ramifications of this reform are still unfolding, a better integration of urban and rural areas and progressive adjustments in the household registration system may bode a gradual shift from temporary or circular labor migration to permanent settlement in cities for rural migrants. Any resulting changes in the rural migration patterns will also result in new trends for the migration impacts to the rural environment in the long term. Hum Ecol (2010) 38:675–690 livelihood activities, and are even better off in some respects, such as living expenses and consumer assets. Since local non-agricultural employment does not result in the prolonged absence of key household laborers, this strategy should achieve a better combination of resource- based and non-resource-based activities in rural household livelihood portfolios. Therefore, creating more non- agricultural employment opportunities within commuting distance from rural communities without causing environ- mental degradation can enhance the sustainability of agricultural production and natural resource use. The environmental impacts of rural migration in rural origin areas are seldom systematically assessed. This research suggests that rural out-migration leads to lower dependency on agriculture and local natural resources for subsistence, and that a trend toward vegetation regeneration is emerging in the study area. However, these relationships are too tenuous to predict an extensive ecological recovery across rural Chongq- ing. This study underscores the need to systematically monitor and investigate changes in land quality, soil erosion, and forest cover over time in rural areas experiencing high magnitude of labor out-migration. Better longitudinal biophysical data at both the macro and the micro levels are needed to improve research and management of rural natural resources following rural out-migration. Finally, this study has methodological implications for future research on rural migration, livelihoods, and the environment. The findings show that a simplistic dichotomous typology of migrant and non-migrant households neglects complexity within the two populations. In fact, non-migrant households are a diverse group, and migrant households can also be further classified based on characteristics of labor migrants, such as gender, household member status (e.g., household head or offspring), length of participation in labor migration, and migration destination (e.g., within or outside province/region, domestic or international). Accounting for variations within both migrant and non-migrant household groups in further studies is important to advance our understanding of the impacts of rural migration on household livelihoods and consequent environmental changes. Acknowledgements This research was supported by a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement grant from the Geography and Spatial Sciences Program of the National Science Foundation, and dissertation research funds from the Worldwide Universities Network, the Rural Sociological Society, and the University of Illinois. An earlier version of this article was presented at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting in Las Vegas, Nevada, March 2009. I am very grateful to my advisor Courtney Flint and dissertation committee members (Jeffrey Dawson, Futing Liao, and Stephen Gasteyer) for their insightful guidance throughout this project. Special thanks go to the community leaders and residents who supported and participated in this research. Thoughtful comments from the three anonymous reviewers and the journal editor are also sincerely appreciated.