The Study On Harmonious Development Between Biodiversity Conservation Of Protection Area And Rural Livelihoods

Establising protection areas is the main mode of protecting biodiversity for the Chinese government, until the end of 2014, China had established 2729 various kinds of protection areas, and the total area occupied around 146990 thousand hectares. However, most of the protection areas in China are located in remote and stricken areas, residents’ livelihoods and income are directly rely on local natural resources, the establishment of protection areas changed the living pattern of surrounding communities, and restricted the utilization of natural resources of local communities surrounding the protection areas, thus affected the local livelihoods to some extent. Meanwhile, the phenomenon of the over-exploitation natural resources to improve income is widely existed, hence the situation of biodiversity conservation is severe. Therefore studying on the contradiction, problems and coordination mechanism of biodiversity conservation and livelihoods in the view of rural households is of great practical significance. This study chose Hubei, Jiangxi, Yunnan, Shaanxi, Guangdong, Liaoning, and Sichuan as the study areas, and carried out the investigation in 36 protection areas of 7 provinces during the period of August 2014 to August 2015. This study analyzed the mutual effect of biodiversity conservation in protection areas and rural households’livelihoods, specifically, the contents of the study include:1) rural households’ protection attitudes and behaviors:based on the perception of conservation benefits and costs.2) the impacts of protection area on rural households’ livelihoods capital and strategies.3) the impacts of protection area on rural households’ livelihoods outcomes, including family wealth, subjective well-being, and livelihoods risks.4) the choice of livelihoods strategies, including natural resources reliance, income diversification and labour transferring, and the impacts on protection.The main conclusions are as follows:firstly, rural households inside the PAs obtained more protection benefits and sustained more protection costs as well, the overall net benefit for households inside the PAs is negative. Households with more protection benefits tend to have more positive protection attitude. Protection attitude, protection benefits, protection contact, family wealth, and education level have significant effect on protection behaviors. Secondly, rural households in the study area showed the chatacteristics of limited livelihoods capital scale, overall fragile and low social alighment, protection intervene promote the labour transferring to non-farm sectors to some extent. Besides, non-farm income constitutes the main livelihoods source base both inside the PAs and outside the PAs. Although most of the rural hosueholds feeled the climate is changing, the proportion of households who chose mitigation strategies was less than 50%. Thirdly, the establishment of PAs had significant negative effect on rural households’family wealth and total income per capita, because the wild animals’ damage inside the PAs reduced households’crop production income. Meanwhile, severe timber harvesting restriction inside the PAs reduced households’ forestry income. Although PAs authorities gave some ecological compensation to rural households to some extent, the compensation amount is far from the damage amount. PAs had comprehensive effects on households’ welfares. PAs decreased natural risks, but increased wild animal damage risks and institutional risks. Fourthly, community households could significantly alleviate forest reliance through participating protection management activities, training, and development projects. Improvement of income diversification in the study area can significantly alleviate forest reliance, especially for the poorest 20% households. When income diversification index increased by 10%, forest reliance decreased by 6%. Transferring of male labours and female labours between 35 and 45 years old can improve the probability of quiting forestry activities and forestland transferring rate. Labour transferring had little impact on forestry capital income, but significantly negative effect on labour investment and forestry income.