Giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) habitat is under threat of fragmentation and disturbance from human being. How to reduce the threat is a cornerstone in the conservation of this flagship species. In order to get this objective, an ecological compensation project, with the sufficient consideration on recipients′ rights in survival and development, helped the farmers develop alternative livelihood and energy substitution to reduce their pressure on surrounding environment. Based on the ecological footprint (EF) concept, this study investigates 120 households to explore the influence of the ecological compensation on the household ecological footprints. The result indicated that the farmers occupied largest land area in “Forest” and “Pasture”. Energy substitutions reduced fuel wood consumption dramatically and farmers′ occupancy on forest land. Farmers′ occupancy on grass land decreased with the adjustment of livestock breeding method. The recipients′ EF per capita declined from 2.7346hm2 (2005) to 1.6325 hm2 (2007), which demonstrated that ecological compensation can reduced local poor people′s EF and pressure on neighborhood environment, and this will benefit wildlife conservation.