The Effects Of Conservation And Development Instruments In Protected Areas And Its Influence Factors

Payment for Ecosystem Services(PES)programs and nature-based tourism are two common instruments that proposed to harmonize environmental conservation with human development.Here,we assessed the the ecological and economic effects,as well as their influencing factors,of two largest PES policies-the Natural Forest Conservation Program(NFCP)and the Grain to Green Program(GTGP),and the nature-based tourismas in China.We firstly taking Wolong Nature Reserve as an example,integrated previous studies on PES policy and nature-based tourism in Wolong reserve and showed the implementation the NFCP and the GTGP,and the evolution of nature-based tourism in the reserve.We also investigated the characteristics and behaviors of nature-based tourism tourists in Wolong,combining existing researches about the characteristics and behaviors of tourists in other protected areas(PAs)to summarize similarities and differences to inform the development of the nature-based tourism in PAs.Then,using socio-economic data collected from households in and around PAs with ecological data on forest cover change for 30 PAs across 8 provinces in China,we assessed the simultaneous ecological and socio-economic effects of these policies at the scale of 30 protected areas and the scale of individual PA,as well as their influencing factors.Finally,based on our results,we discussed the problems in the implementation of PES policy and the development of ecotourism,and put forward some suggestions to improve the sustainable implementation of these policies in the future.Key findings from this work included:The results of the development of conservation and development policies in reserve showed that:(1)the implementation of the PES policy in reserve was highly consistent with national-scale measure;(2)The development of ecotourism in Wolong reserve has obviously experienced three stages of exploration,initiation and development,which were interrupted by the Wenchuan earthquake in 2008;(3)tourists in Wolong reserve mainly came from Sichuan province,the male to female ratio is1:1.3,and visitors are mainly in middle income group of 19 to 49 years old(67%),college degree or above(67%),and 61.8% of them stay for only one or two days;(4)integrated other similar studies,tourists in reserve mainly came from provinces and cities where the reserve is located,middle income tourists aged 20-50 with college degree or above are the main group,and they usually stay for 2 days or less.The ecological and economic benefits of both conservation and development policies on the scale of protected areas are assessed,and the results showed that the socio-economic effect of PES policies is negligible,it is hard to achieve a win-win situation of conservation and development on a broad scale,while nature-based tourism has great potential to realize the coordinated development of ecological conservation and and development.Specifically:(1)the NFCP effectively reduced forest loss and promoted forest gain,while its economic effect is insignificant;(2)the GTGP significantly promoted forest gain but also indirectly increased forest loss,its economic effect is negligible as well;(3)nature-based tourism significantly promoted forest gain and increased household income in our study area,indicating the tourism development may have great potential to harmonize the environmental conservation with human development;(4)Many household attributes(e.g.,livelihood activities)and PA attributes(e.g.,reputation,management level)significantly influenced local residents’ household income and forest conservation across PAs.Spatial heterogeneity assessment of the economic benefits of conservation and development policies indicated that:(1)the economic impact of PES policy and tourism is indeed spatially heterogeneous,and NFCP,GTGP and nature-based tourism significantly improved the economic income of residents of only a few reserves;(2)two PES programs are more likely to have a significant positive impact on households with fewer assets(such as smaller homes)and those involved in farming.