| The cultural landscape represents "the combined works of nature and human, and areas including archaeological sites which are of outstanding universal value from the historical, aesthetic, ethnological or anthropological point of view", which is listed in Article1of Convention Concerning the Protection of the World Cultural and Natural Heritage (abbreviated as the Convention). It clarifies the essential characteristics of implementing the heritage protection which takes various geographical areas as basic. The cultural landscape in China keeps a humanistic attitude that is different from the West’s cultural attitude seeing culture and nature as two controdictory parts, and is a kind of cultural landscape that reflects Chineses philosophical view of "the harmony between man and nature". Mount Wutai, the world heritage cultural landscape, is the concentrated reflection of China’s most simple ecological philosophy view of "the harmony between human and nature" that embodies the dialectical unity of human and nature. Natural factors have provided all sorts of conditions for the establishment and development of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape. The material factors and its couterpart, non-material factors (also called human factors, including traditional philosophy, religion, aesthetics, political outlook etc.) are the internal mechanism of the formation of its cultural landscapes. Mount Wutai is not only the objective reality of cultural products, but also a reflection of the dynamic process of the lifelike cultural landscape. Futhermore, it is an example of the perfect combination of natural landscape and Buddhist culture.Dealing with the relationship between human and nature is the inherent requirement of the sustainable development theory. As an ideal eco-ethical wisdom, the concept of harmonious coexistence, reflected in Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape, has a strong practical significance in today’s society."The harmony between the heaven and human", the ecological concept of natural philosophy, played an important role in the formation process of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape. The Monju culture in Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape perfectly embodied the traditional Chinese thinking,"the harmony between the heaven and human". The perfect combination of the two has laid an ecological heritage of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape. And the localization of India Buddhism in China has been deeply affected by the thought of "the harmony between the heaven and human". The ecological ethics and ecological view of nature reflected in Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape, deeply affect the local residents’habits, customs, and eco-practices. In turn, this eco-practice can further eco-sustainable development protection of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape heritage.Cultural landscape heritages across the country is facing lots of chanllenges, from the gaps of protection ideas, the overlapping of administrative management, the destruction during the development and construction of scenic, the challenges of the social change, to the survival threats from the environmental problems. Under the background that the whole country is committed to implementing the scientific concept of development, constructing an ecological civilization, building a harmonious society and accelerating the process of urbanization, it is very necessary to undertake the practice creatively combining with our unique traditional cultural background, and to explore a new road of the protection and sustainable development of the cultural landscape heritage with Chinese characteristics, from the new ecological perspectives and ideas of philosophy of sustainable development.In the process of writing this thesis, the author used the systematic research methods. He separately studied the ecological view of nature, the ecological ethics, and the practice of eco-qualitative embodied in Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape in accordance with the ontology, values, and view of practice of ecological philosophy. On this basis, the author, combined with related theories, initially established the first China-based evaluation index system of the sustainable development level of world cultural landscape heritages. And then he applied it to analyzing and evaluating the sustainable development level of Mount Wutai’s world cultural landscape heritage. In the end of the thesis, he gave advices on the optimization strategies according to the results above.Based on the thinking discussed above, the thesis can be divided into four parts, which include the introduction, systematic discussion of six chapters, and the concluding remarks.The first part of the thesis (viz."the introduction part"), has reviewed the relevant academic history, clarifed the important concepts that are related to the main topic of the thesis, elucidated the nature of the object, the value and significance of the study, proposed a reasonable research method, the theoretical basis to carry out research to lay the theoretical foundation for the deepening of the study carried out.The second part(including Chapter1, Chapter2, and Chapter3), separately studied the ecological view of nature, the ecological ethics, and the practice of eco-qualitative embodied in Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape in accordance with the ontology, values, and view of practice of ecological philosophy.Chapter1,"Cultural landscape of Mount Wutai and Buddhist ecological view of nature", explored in detail the evolution of the Buddhist ecological view of nature from " Yizhengbuer" to "the harmony between the heaven and human", interpreted the natural philosophy of "the harmony between the heaven and human" reflected in Mount Wutai’s Monju culture, and presented the ecological view of nature by the historical evolution of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape. The Buddhist idea of "Yizhengbuer", the main Buddhist ecological view of nature, is very profound in the understanding of the relationship between human and environment. It has a fundamental significance for the current practice of environmental protection. There is some common ground between the Buddhist idea of "Yizhengbuer", Taoism, Confucianism and other traditional Chinese view of nature, the harmony between the heaven and human. They all regarded man and nature as a whole. In the localization of India Buddhism in China, the main Buddhist ecological view of nature(" Yizhengbuer"), has combined with the traditional Chinese view of nature("the harmony between the heaven and human"), witnessed the formation of the natural ecological ideological rich in Chinese characteristics, and had a profound influence on the development of Chinese ancient cultural landscape. This ecological concept of natural philosophy played an important role in the formation process of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape. The Monju culture in Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape perfectly embodied the traditional Chinese thinking,"the harmony between the heaven and human". The perfect combination of the two has laid an ecological heritage of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape.Chapter2,"Cultural landscape of Mount Wutai and the Buddhist ecological ethics", further systematic proved that Mount Wutai’s Buddhism ecological ethics (such as theory of origin, mercy view, and harmonious coexistence concept) is the basis of the formation of the ecological view of nature,"the harmony between the heaven and human". Since the Eastern Jin Dynasty, Mount Wutai region witnessed an increasing prevalence of Buddhist ceremonies, senior monks promote Buddhism benefit and living beings very frequently, emperor of different dynasty all came here to worshipping Buddhism and building temples.All this deeds not only make the Mount Wutai a place many Buddhists longing for, and also make it an unique ecological cultural landscape. As the saying goes,"Since ancient times, most famous mountains were occupied by monks". Mount Wutai is famous of Buddhism. And Buddhism was also developed due to Mount Wutai. The clean natural environment of Mount Wutai makes it a suitable place for Buddhist practice. Many exotic natural landscapes fit all the Buddhist teachings deified legend. Moreover, under the guidance of Mount Wutai’s Buddhist thought of ecological ethics, the monks and worshipers are attached great importance to ecological protection of the natural environment, which fully reflects the important influence of the ecological culture of Buddhism to Mount Wutai’s ecological natural environment.Chapter3,"Cultural landscape of Mount Wutai and Buddhist environmental practices", specifically addressed the interaction between the Mount Wutai’s Cultural Landscape and Buddhist ecological environmental practices from Mount Wutai’s Buddhist way of life, mode of production, cultural and educational function. The ecological environmental practices include the contents of the mode of production, lifestyle, and eco-consciousness publicity education. Through the discussion of ecological view of nature and ecological ethics in the first two chapters, the natural environment of Mount Wutai region were affected indirectly by Mount Wutai’s Buddhism ecological culture, which is mainly reflected in the eco-friendly practice of Buddhist monks and worshipers.The third part of the thesis, including Chapter4and Chapter5, is based on the qualitative analysis, which have been done in the first three chapters. The author, combined with related theories, initially established the first China-based evaluation index system of the sustainable development level of world cultural landscape heritages. And then he applied it to analyzing and evaluating the sustainable development level of Mount Wutai’s world cultural landscape heritage.Chapter4,"the building of the evaluation system of the sustainable development of ecological and cultural landscape of Mount Wutai", is the theoretical exploration of the evaluation system of the sustainable development of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape. According to the features of Mountain Wutai’s cultural landscape and the relationship between various influencing factors, combined with the relevant requirements of Buddhism ecological philosophy of Mountain Wutai, the author built the index system frame of cultural landscape’s sustainable development which is based on two major types of development factors: the ecological driving factor and the ecological sustainable factor; has six assessment objectives:ecological resources, technical supporting facilities, ecological landscape management, ecological environment, ecological society and ecological culture; contains target layer, type layer, index layer and factor layer, which have41evaluation factors. And then he used the analytic hierarchy process (AHP method) and the Delphi method to determine the weights of evaluation indicators, qualitatively the nature of evaluation index, the comprehensive evaluation methods of ecological sustainable development and its grading standards, so as to lay a solid theoretical basis for the comprehensive evaluation of the ecological sustainable development of Mount Wutai’s world cultural landscape heritage.Chapter5,"the evaluation of the sustainable development of ecological and cultural landscape of Mount Wutai", can be divided into two sections which were the status of cultural landscape’s ecological sustainable development and the practical application of the evaluation index system. In the first section, the author specifically analyzed the current situation of the sustainable development of Mount Wutai’s world cultural landscape heritage from six aspects (viz. ecological resources, ecological culture, ecological environment, technical supporting facilities, and ecological society) and provided the application of the evaluation system with a sufficient factual basis. After clearly sorting out the status quo of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape, in Section2, he used the evaluation index system established in Chapter4to diagnose its sustainable development. To come to the end of the quantitative evaluation findings, the evaluation process consists of five steps, that is, to establish the judgement matrix, to calculate eigenvector W and maximum eigenvalue λmax, to sort the levels and check the consistency, to be rated by experts, and to analyze the evaluation results. The empirical study results show that the ecological resources and culture of Mount Wutai’s cultural landscape are in the state of sustainable development, its technical supporting facilities and ecological environment are in the state of elementary sustainable development, and its ecological landscape management and ecological society are in the state of preliminary sustainable developmen.The fourth part of the thesis (viz. Chapter6) is an research of the optimization of the sustainable development level of Mountain Wutai’s cultural landscape. In connection with quantitative evaluation findings, combining the theories of STS, ecological philosophy and other related disciplines, according to Shanxi provincial government’s important instructions of speeding up the construction of the economic transformation of resources-based synthetical reform testing district, the author has brought forword to the aims and basic principles of promoting the sustainable development of the cultural landscape of Mount WuTai. And taking these aims and principles as a basis, combining with the results of field research, in allusion to the problems that were found out in the evaluation results of Chapter5, the author holded that in the future sustainable development of Mount WuTai’s world cultural landscape heritage, the local administrative authority should intensify research on and properly handle the game relationship between the protection and exploition of cultural landscape. He proposed seven strategies to fully optimize the sustainable development quality of Mount WuTai’s world cultural landscape heritaget, which are strengthening resources conservation measures, promoting continuious healthy development of Mount Wutai; deeply excavating culture connotation, comprehensively upgrading landscape taste; strengthen ecological and environmental governance, perfecting environmental protection mechanism; agressively promoting projects construction, constantly enhancing technical supporting ability; comprehensively promote eco-social construction, working hardly to build eco-community; vigorously optimizing management mechanism, stimulating development vigor of the landscape; increasing policies support dynamics, adhering to standardized management service.In conclusion part, the author made concluding thinking of related theoretical issues, such as Mount WuTai’s Buddhism ecological view of nature and sustainable development, Mount WuTai’s Buddhism ecological ethics and sustainable development, comprehensively overviewed and summarized of the intrinsic ecological philosophy of Mount WuTai’s Cultural Landscape. He also discussed the evaluation index system of the sustainable development of world cultural landscape heritage’s high degree of theoretical rationality and extensive applicability in practical field in different ways. And then, he analyzed the feasibility and anticipated the results of the optimization strategies. In the end, the future study research activities were conceived. |
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