Abstract: Fishery regulation is an important instrument to carry out the development strategy of the Yangtze River Economic Belt i.e. “To Prioritize joint protection and to avoid grand exploitation”.It is helpful for better policy making and implementation of fishery regulation such as restriction and prohibition to understand the impact of ecological cognition of fishermen on their willingness to quit fishery or accept compensation. Based on the field survey data and using the theory of planned behavior and structural equation model, this paper discusses the effect of ecological cognition on fishermen’s willingness to participate in the fishery limitation program. The study results show that: (1) ecological cognition has a significant positive effect on fishermen’s willingness to participate in the fishery phasing out program (2) all the three dimensions of ecological cognition, including subjective norms, behavioral attitudes and perceived behavioral control, have significant positive effects on fishermen’s willingness,and there are also significant positive effects between each two of the three dimensions. Among them, subjective norms have the most significant influence on fishermen’s willingness. （3) the mandatory norms in the subjective norms have a greater driving effect on fishermen’s participation in the program than the model norms. The behavior attitude is greatly influenced by the fishermen’s psychological expectation of the government’s no-fishing policy and by the relative recognition of the importance of ecological restoration and protection versus economic development. Perceived behavior control is mainly affected by the impact of the policy on household production and livelihood, and the ability of fishermen to participate in the policy. The policy implication of this study is that it is imperative to establish effective supervision and management system, to employ more mandatory norms in persuading fishermen to participate the program, and to improve fishermen’s cognition of the importance of ecological protection in the Yangtze River Basin. It is also important to nourish the culture and awareness of ecological protection in the river basin to encourage them to actively participate in activities. At the same time, it will be helpful to formulate the alternative livelihood policies and carry out these policies to each of the households affected with sufficient compensation and transparency, which will translate into fishermen’s trust and confidence in the government and finally raise their willingness to participate the government program in fishery regulation.