Ecological poverty alleviation is one of China's accurate poverty alleviation strategies. The Guiding Opinions of the CPC Central Committee and the State Council on Three-year Action to Win the Fight against Poverty issued in August 2018 calls for innovating ecological poverty alleviation mechanisms, strengthening ecological protection and restoration in poor areas, and achieving a win-win situation of ecological improvement and poverty alleviation. Poverty alleviation by ecological compensation has realized the effective combination of ecological protection compensation and accurate poverty alleviation policy mechanism. Although China has achieved some practical results in ecological poverty alleviation at the policy level, the combination of ecological protection and accurate poverty alleviation and the corresponding policy measures have not yet been fully integrated. Moreover, the mode of ecological compensation for poverty alleviation is not perfect, and the corresponding operating mechanism of ecological compensation for poverty alleviation has not been fully established. This paper summarizes and expounds the present situation of ecological compensation research (including ecological compensation concept, ecological compensation mechanism, ecological compensation mode), the current situation of ecological poverty alleviation research (including the relationship between ecological compensation and poverty alleviation, ecological poverty alleviation model, ecological poverty alleviation mechanism), and then analyzes the main problems existing in the current poverty alleviation by ecological compensation. This paper puts forward the breakthrough points of establishing and perfecting ecological compensation to help the poor, so as to provide a reference basis for further promoting the development of ecological poverty alleviation.