Payment for ecosystem service is an important measure to solve contradiction between regionally ecological protection and economic development. Based on land use changes, the spatio-temporal variation characteristics of ecosystem services value (ESV) in western Jiangxi from 2002 to 2016 were analyzed using equivalent factor calculation method. Taking regional nature condition and economic development level into consideration, the ecological compensation priority and quota of counties (cities and districts) in the study region were calculated and ecological compensation strategies were also discussed. The results are as follows. (1) The ESV of forest land in western Jiangxi is the highest, accounting for 80.39% of the total value. Water and soil conservation and gas regulation are the main service types in the ecosystem, accounting for 51.18%. The total and each individual ESV show decreasing trends in varying degrees. In terms of county units, the ESV of Yushui, Zhangshu, Fengcheng and Gao'an is relatively low, while that of Tonggu, Yifeng, Fengxin and Jing'an County is relatively high. And areas with the highest declined rates of ESV are mainly distributed in Anyuan, Yuanzhou and Qinshui district. (2) Total theoretically ecological compensation amount of western Jiangxi is 392.62 million yuan, accounting for 0.13% of GDP, among which the ecological compensation amount of forest land is 318.20 million yuan, accounting for 81.04% of the total compensation. From the perspective of county units, Tonggu, Jing'an and Yifeng are the first three priority compensation counties, with compensation amounts of 96.22, 68.22 and 47.35 million yuan, respectively, while the last three compensation counties are Anyuan, Zhangshu and Shanggao accounting for 1.66% of the total compensation amount. The priority and theoretical compensation amount calculated in this study are partly verified by the statistical data supplied by the counties and districts, which shows that the research is scientific and reasonable to some extent. The compensation funds take up a low proportion of GDP and have little pressure on local finance, which are operable in the practice of ecological environment protection and sustainable development.