Abstract: Building ecological public welfare forest is a significant measurement to resolve ecological problems in China.Based on panel data collected by sample survey on rural households of Zhejiang province,this paper analyzes the impact of ecological public welfare forest on farmers income by econometrics model with farmers income including income from forestry,off-farm employment income and total income as dependent variable.Research indicates that building ecological public welfare forest has negative impact on farmers income from forestry,but does not have distinctive impact on off-farm employment income and total income.It is our recommendation that improving compensation mechanism of ecological forest and increasing off-farm employment opportunities are the fundamental ways to achieve sustainable development of ecological public welfare forest.