Conservation Effectiveness Assessment Of Fanjingshan National Nature Reserve Based On Gross Ecosystem Product

The establishment of protected areas(PAs)is the most direct and effective way to protect biodiversity and important ecosystems.Assessing the conservation effectiveness of PAs is one of the key requirements of the ’2020 Global Biodiversity Targets’,which has become a hot issue in current studies.In recent years,most studies used single indicators to assess the conservation effectiveness of PAs,or used multiple indicators which were weighted and scored by experts to calculate the comprehensive effectiveness.With the concept of ecological civilization and Nature Based Solution(Nb S)gaining popularity,the contribution of PAs to economic and social development and human well-being has been increasingly emphasized.Therefore,some scholars have proposed that gross ecosystem product(GEP)can be used as a comprehensive indicator to assess the conservation effectiveness of PAs.However,the system for assessing the conservation effectiveness of PAs based on GEP accounting had not been developed,and less studies had been undertaken to explore the trends of ecological values of PAs and identify the main factors influencing the conservation effectiveness of PAs on GEP,which make it difficult to provide a reference basis for achieving a balance between conservation and development of PAs.Thus,this study constructed an assessment system for the conservation effectiveness of PAs based on GEP accounting,and took Fanjingshan National Nature Reserve(Fanjingshan NNR)in Guizhou Province as the study area to investigate the conservation effectiveness of the reserve on GEP and its main influencing factors.First,the GEP accounting index system was constructed according to the characteristics and main functions of Fanjingshan NNR,including water retention,soil conservation,carbon sequestration,oxygen release,air purification,climate regulation,and leisure tourism.The In VEST model,GIS tools,and value accounting methods were used to calculate the physical quantities and monetary value of ecosystem services in Fanjingshan NNR from 2000 to 2020,and then the GEP of Fanjingshan NNR was obtained.Then,using the value of ecosystem regulation services as the evaluation index,the propensity score matching(PSM)model and the Wilcoxon signed rank test was used to evaluate the conservation effectiveness of Fanjingshan NNR from 2000 to 2020 by comparing samples inside and outside Fanjingshan NNR.Finally,natural factors and human factors that potentially affect the conservation effectiveness of Fanjingshan NNR were selected,including forest coverage rate,average annual temperature,average annual precipitation and population density,and the random forest(RF)model was used to identify the main factors influencing the conservation effectiveness of Fanjingshan NNR at different stages.The main findings are as follows.(1)In terms of the physical quantities of ecosystem services,water retention,soil conservation,air purification,climate regulation and leisure tourism in Fanjingshan NNR increased from 2000 to 2020,while carbon sequestration and oxygen release decreased.(2)From the perspective of GEP,the GEP of Fanjingshan NNR showed an overall growth trend from 2000 to 2020,and the growth rate of GEP was 19.77% in this period.Among them,the value of ecosystem regulation services accounted for more than 95%of GEP,and the proportion of various types of regulation services in descending order was: climate regulation > soil conservation > water retention > air purification > oxygen release > carbon sequestration.In addition,the value of ecosystem cultural service in Fanjingshan NNR has increased significantly in the past two decades.(3)Taking the value of ecosystem regulation services as the evaluation index,from the perspective of conservation effectiveness,the trend was increasing both inside and outside Fanjingshan NNR from 2000 to 2020,and the trend was significantly higher inside Fanjingshan NNR than outside(P < 0.01).As to each period,the value of ecosystem regulation services in Fanjingshan NNR decreased from 2000 to 2005,while the value of regulation services increased in the other three periods,with the largest increase in 2010-2015.(4)The main factors influencing the conservation effectiveness of Fanjingshan NNR from 2000 to 2020 were population density change,initial population density,and average annual temperature change.And the conservation effectiveness gradually increased as the population density decreased.In addition,the conservation effectiveness was higher in areas with lower initial population density.In terms of different periods,the change of forest coverage rate was the most important factor influencing the conservation effectiveness from 2000 to 2005,followed by multi-year average temperature.While in the other three periods(2005-2010,2010-2015,and2015-2020),initial population density was the most important factor influencing the conservation effectiveness,and temperature and precipitation also played a certain role.