Concession is of great significance for the construction of China's national park system, and systematic research on community concession is of great value. Based on typical practice cases at home and abroad, the study employs methods such as multi-case comparison to conduct a logical analysis of community concession practices and model comparison. The results indicate that: (1) The practical logic of community concession shows strong consistency. The goal logic is to balance the protection of national parks with community autonomous development by empowering community management. The subject logic is to appoint communities with high stakes in the national parks as concessionaires. The granting logic is non-competitive targeted concession, and the business logic involves the participation and assistance of multiple parties, with both one-level and two-level concession structure coexisting. (2) Community concession differs significantly from non-community concession in terms of guiding philosophy, concession objectives, granting methods, concession structures and support mechanisms, representing a new model of national park concession. Finally, policy recommendations are put forward from the aspects of establishing the top-level design of community concession, strengthening the management system of community concession, and improving the assistance mechanism of community concession.
As a scientific tool for promoting the effective management and sustainable use of national parks, the concession system is essential to satisfying visitor desire for ecological experiences, fostering alternative livelihoods for communities, and attaining an appropriate equilibrium between resource conservation and community development. There is an urgent need to conduct an extensive review of the concession cooperation mechanism in order to tackle the real-world concerns of constrained consultation channels, arbitrary benefit distribution, and weak social organizations that have been identified during the pilot phase of the concession system in national parks. The study examines the social network of the Sanjiangyuan National Park concession operation mechanism from the standpoint of social embedding, in accordance with the stakeholder theory. In order to explore stakeholder social network positions and roles in policy, cognitive, cultural, and livelihood aspects as well as their cooperative mechanisms, an analytical framework for the embeddedness of national park concessions is developed. The research demonstrated that various social embeddedness dimensions have different stakeholder role positions; park residents, management organizations, and concessionaires are at the core level of social networks for policy, cognitive, cultural, and livelihood dimensions. NGOs play a strong intermediary role among different stakeholders. Under the model of national park concession cooperation mechanism based on social embeddedness, there are differences in the concerns of different stakeholders under different interest demands. Cultural embedding has a positive moderating effect on policy embedding and cognitive embedding. The impact of policy embedding on livelihood embedding is two-sided. Cognitive embedding is a precursor to livelihood embeddedness. Therefore, the concession system must fully coordinate the interests and demands of all parties, encourage the participation and cooperation of various social forces, and explore diversified concession models. The findings of this study can provide a foundation for establishing a more rigorous and locally tailored concession system in western China's national park system.
The large-scale construction of national parks poses a huge challenge to the demand for ecological compensation funds. Financial compensation is not only a drop in the bucket, but also difficult to solve the rigid dilemma of insufficient and mismatched compensation. This study uses carbon trading as a tool to solve the ecological compensation problem in national parks, and outlines three channels: international, domestic, and third-party independent voluntary emission reduction mechanisms that develop ecological carbon sinks into voluntary greenhouse gas emissions reductions to benefit the carbon market. Among them, China Certified Emission Reduction (CCER) is the main channel for realizing the ecological carbon sink value of national parks in the future. Then, the study analyzed three key issues: limited market supply, difficulty in effective trading, and unclear profit distribution models for national parks to obtain sufficient and precise ecological compensation through CCER market. In the design of ecological carbon sink compensation mechanism based on carbon trading, a screening mechanism is proposed to ensure the maximum profit potential of ecological carbon sink projects under the principle of balancing economic and social ecological benefits after the methodological barriers are cleared. An effective trading mechanism is established by offsetting ratios, offsetting in other regions, and government protection settings to promote transactions and effectively distinguish the boundary between government and market compensation. In order to avoid operational risks, a precise compensation mechanism is introduced by establishing a PPP model of third-party professional carbon sink development enterprises for ecological carbon sink project, and income distribution is based on the contributions of relevant carbon sink supply entities. Finally, the study provides relevant policy recommendations for National Forestry and Grassland Administration, which is in charge of national parks, and Ministry of Ecology and Environment, which is in charge of carbon markets in China. The research results are expected to provide reference and inspiration for establishing market-oriented ecological compensation mechanisms in all nature reserves and other ecological spaces, including national parks.
As China's national park system reform enters a crucial phase, effective governance of national parks seeks to leverage the strengths of government, market, and societal entities to establish a multi-actor co-governance structure. National park communities, as a vital component of societal entities, are a key link in fostering effective governance of national parks. Based on literature research, this paper elucidates the underlying logic of communities as critical actors in the governance of China's national parks. It distills the characteristics and challenges of community involvement in national park governance through empirical studies and proposes recommendations for promoting the coordinated development of national parks and communities. The study indicates that, as complex socio-ecological systems, Chinese national parks feature distinct patterns of community-based natural resource utilisation. The necessity of community involvement in national park governance fundamentally lies in the fact that only reasonable multi-actor natural resource governance can sustain harmony between nature and humans. Current community participation in national park governance is influenced by path dependence, context dependence, and financial dependence. Governance effectiveness is affected by structural factors, local cognition, and incentive mechanisms. Based on the analysis of current community participation, this paper further proposes an analytical framework to disentangle the park-people relationship that can be steered to be positive under good governance. Thus, to fully leverage the role of communities as actors in national park governance and achieve coordinated development between national parks and communities, the paper suggests differentiated community management mechanisms, diversified incentives and guarantees, internalisation of external policies, and mainstreaming biodiversity. This approach aims to achieve socio-ecological systems' adaptive governance, foster cooperation among governance entities, realise livelihoods compatible with conservation, and prompt interdepartmental government collaboration to address structural issues. Ultimately, clarifying natural resource property rights, decentralising management authority, and promoting community-led conservation based on local needs and cultural contexts should be central to community empowerment in community governance. To achieve the governance goal of coordination between national parks and community through a multi-actor governance approach, it is necessary to strengthen the power and secure rights of national park communities, with legal protection as the starting point and community self-awareness enhancement as the endpoint. Thus, multidimensional community empowerment, including political, economic, cultural, social, and technical aspects, should be implemented in the process of national park governance.
The pro-environmental behavior of indigenous residents in neighboring communities can have a direct or indirect impact on the effectiveness of ecological conservation, which is a crucial factor driving the establishment of national parks. Based on the survey data of 513 indigenous residents in Qinling National Park creation area, OLS regression and Bootstrap method were used to investigate the impact of livelihood capital on indigenous residents' pro-environmental behavior and its mechanism. The findings of the study indicate that the participation of indigenous people in pro-environmental behavior is lower in the public domain compared to the private domain. Additionally, the residents surveyed possessed abundant financial capital and comparatively less natural capital. Livelihood capital was found to have a significant impact on pro-environmental behavior. Specifically, public pro-environmental behavior showed positive correlations with human capital and social capital, while private pro-environmental behavior displayed positive correlations with human capital and financial capital, but a negative correlation with natural capital. The study highlighted that distributive fairness, procedural fairness, and interactive fairness play mediating roles in the relationship between livelihood capital and pro-environmental behavior. Procedural fairness had the highest mediating effect, followed by interactive fairness and distributive fairness. Therefore, in the construction of national parks, it is necessary to enhance the accumulation of livelihood capital of indigenous residents through multiple channels, correct the inequity of existing policies, ensure community participation in decision-making, and strengthen communication with indigenous residents, so as to directly or indirectly increase the level of fairness perception of indigenous residents, and promote the implementation of pro-environmental behaviors by indigenous residents.
Mobility has been an important area of academic thinking about the material turn in recent years. This paper takes the South China National Botanical Garden (SCNBG) as the research object, uses translocality theory, and uses semi-structured interviews, participatory observation, and text collection to understand the translocality practice process of plant relocation and conservation in the SCNBG, specifically examining how translocality practices of plant relocation conservation are realized through the interactions between humans and plants, and how translocality practices shape the operational system of relocation conservation in botanical gardens.The study concludes that: (1) Mobility practice is the driving force of plant relocation conservation, and its process plays out the matrix of power relations formed by the discourse of ecological conservation, the discourse of market economy, and the discourse of politics. (2) The role of agency is an important basis for the translocality practice of plants. Plants are based on their climatic characteristics and environmental adaptations in different spaces, plants shape a flexible plant care system, and exhibit the Plant-Human-Place interaction in botanical gardens. (3) Connectivity is an essential feature of plant translocality practice, which reveals the potential roles of relocated and conserved plants in constructing the social relationship and the connectivity of the natural space. The study opens the black box of translocality practices of plants as a living non-human actor from a geographic perspective, theoretically complementing and refining the theory of translocality practices, and practically providing a governance pathway for the spatial practice of relocated conservation in national botanical gardens.
What governance model can be adopted to better enhance the ecological, social and economic effectiveness of nature reserve governance? Few studies have conducted quantitative comparative analyses based on the community perception perspective. Based on the Institutional Analysis and Development (IAD) framework, 17 communities within and around the Giant Panda National Park were selected. Differences in community perception of State-led, co-managed, and community-based and other elements affecting community residents' perceptions of effectiveness will be compared, by means of questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, one-way ANOVA, and stepwise regression analysis. Our study found that: (1) Community residents have the most positive perceptions of the ecological effectiveness of the Giant Panda National Park and the most negative perceptions of the economic effectiveness. (2) The community-based model has the best performance in the three dimensions, while State-led conservation has the second best performance in the ecological and social dimensions, and co-managed model has the second best performance in the economic dimensions. (3) The community residents' perceptions of the effectiveness of the Giant Panda National Park are affected by the combination of the natural geographic conditions, economic and social attributes, and other factors.We point out that all types of governance models have their advantages and disadvantages, and community-based governance is not a "panacea" for all public pond resource problems. Therefore, it is advocated to carry out local adaptation of the selection of nature reserve governance models. The study expands the application scenarios of the IAD framework, deepens the theoretical understanding of nature reserve governance models, and provides empirical insights for community coordination of nature reserves in China.
In the transition context of China's ecological civilization, it is of practical significance to consciously trace the theoretical logic of the relationship between area-based conservation and tourism from western literature. Based on the evolution and social construction ontology of the relationship between conservation and tourism, a conceptual model is built for guiding the study. The critical literature analysis considers comparing the historical dynamics of the interaction between theory and practice in the process of repeated questioning to grasp the relationship complexity in the process of theories making and breaking. The results show that the relationship between conservation and tourism theoretically evolves through three typical stages, namely, "mutual rejection in theory", "consensus and governance in practice", and "neoliberal risks of the relationship". The evolution process is centered on the ultimate goal of effective conservation, incorporating the framework of sustainable development and cooperative governance. The evolution dynamics stems from the repeated gaps and adjustments between theory and practice. In the early stage of fortress-style conservation, conservation and tourism formed an exclusion dichotomy. The emergence and widespread of sustainable development in the new century has promoted the integration of conservation and development. Tourism, as an integrative practice, formed a consensual co-management relationship with conservation. Three types of governance programs emerged from the research around the pluralistic goals of consensus: integrated and sustainable development approach, community based eco-tourism, and adaptive co-management. Recent neoliberalism has promoted eco-social risks from the conservation-tourism nexus. Tourism, based on critical political ecology of ecotourism and sustainable tourism, acted as a justice practice role for conservation to promote tangible sustainable development change. The study provides an alternative inspiring domestic scholar to go beyond the simplified thinking of the conservation-tourism nexus in natural sciences. It helps to pay attention to the real practice of tourism in protected areas from the social complexity theoretical perspective, and to develop localized knowledge from Chinese ecological civilization in the light of the historical evolution of international theories.
The green transformation in agricultural production is an important research topic in the field of agricultural sustainable development. Based on the concept of agricultural green development and theoretical analysis in terms of the transformation path, this paper aims to examine the major processes of the agricultural green development practices and assess the effects in reducing chemical products input and increasing agricultural output within the Yangtze River Economic Belt (YREB) in the past 20 years in combination of the methods of literature investigation, semi-structural interviews, questionnaire analysis and decoupling analysis. The results show that since 2015 the provincial-level regions within the YREB issued a set of policies related to the agricultural green development actions, which encouraged the farmers to replace the traditional chemical fertilizer with alternative and organic fertilizer, prevent and control the devastations caused by the diseases, insects and herbs with ecological measures, and reuse the agricultural residues in order to reduce the consumption of chemical fertilizer and pesticides and herbicides in agricultural production. Compared to the other regions in China, the YREB has a five-year lead in terms of achieving the great aims of zero growth and reduction of pesticide and chemical fertilizer use in agricultural production. Nevertheless, the current chemical fertilizer and pesticide usage intensity in the YREB is still more than two times the international average level. Although the chemical fertilizer and pesticide usage intensity in the downstream areas of the Yangtze River is much higher than that in the upstream areas due to the differentiation in terms of multiple crop index and agricultural output density, the chemical fertilizer and pesticide usage intensity appears to gradually disconnect with the multiple crop index and agricultural output density because of the wide application of new technologies for agricultural green development. However, the ongoing agricultural green development agenda within the studu area still faces challenges, including the rising costs in upgrading the production technology and agricultural machinery and equipment and the severe difficulty in overcoming ageing issues and introducing or fostering young talents in agricultural sector.
Reducing food waste is the important way to ensure food security. Household is the basic unit of society. Household is not only the main scene of food waste, but also an important place to carry out anti-food waste education. This study takes Zhengzhou city, Henan province as an example, based on 1315 first-hand survey data of urban household food waste, and divides such waste into two parts: food waste inside three meals and outside three meals during a day. It studies the overall situation of urban household food waste, household food waste behavior and its influencing factors, and proposes targeted reduction strategies on this basis. The results show that: (1) The per capita per day food waste of urban households was 15.47 g/d, of which vegetables account for 47.45% of the total, followed by staple foods (20.51%), and meat (13.41%). (2) There were significant differences in the amount and composition of per capita per day food waste inside and outside the three meals. The per capita per day food waste inside the three meals was 10.70 g/d, 2.24 times of that outside the three meals; vegetables (55.39%), staple foods (20.80%), and meat (18.72%) account for the largest proportion of waste inside the three meals, while vegetables (29.65%), milk (25.68%), and fruits (21.67%) account for the largest proportion of waste outside the three meals. (3) Reducing household food waste should focus on modifiable factors. Controlling the frequency of ordering takeout, increasing information intervention, and improving level of food waste awareness and household food management ability are the main strategies to reduce food waste in urban households.
This study measures farmers' needs for organic farming development policies from the perspective of the main policy recipients, farmers, and then analyzes the direction of policy optimization based on 816 farmer questionnaire research data from the ibis habitat in Yangxian county, using the choice experiment method. The results found that: (1) Four policies, namely, financial subsidies, technical training, brand recognition and e-commerce support, can significantly increase farmers' willingness to participate in organic agriculture development programs, but restrictions on the use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides have a negative inhibitory effect. (2) There is heterogeneity in the preferences of farmers with different socioeconomic characteristics for organic farming development policies. (3) There are differences in farmers' preferences for different organic farming development policy combinations, with the highest preference for e-commerce support, followed by brand recognition, technical training, financial subsidies, and a negative preference for fertilizer and pesticide restrictions. This means that in the future, development of organic farming policy should not be limited to conventional financial subsidies and technical training, should be in line with the development of the times, break the inherent thinking, from the electric business support, brand recognition, etc., to help farmers build a bridge from production to marketing, to enhance the effectiveness of the policy. At the same time, it should fully consider the heterogeneity of farmers' location and endowment, closely follow the needs of farmers, and guarantee the fairness and effectiveness of the policy.
As one of the important subsystems of the global carbon system, the land use system plays a pivotal role in achieving global carbon neutrality. Based on the theoretical analysis and inductive deduction, this paper establishes a theoretical analysis framework for the carbon effect of the land use system from a social-ecological perspective. It summarizes the research history of the carbon effect of the land use system, basic measurement methods, and simulation prediction method systems. Additionally, it initially establishes an optimized path and toolbox for carbon neutrality in the land use system. Currently, basic research on measuring carbon emissions and carbon sequestration in the land use system has matured, and the research focus has shifted from basic research to comprehensive exploration of influencing factors, quantitative prediction and simulation of carbon emission reduction and sequestration enhancement, and carbon neutrality path research. However, several challenges remain: the lack of regional correction for equivalent coefficients in basic carbon emissions and sequestration measurements; the omission of governance dimensions in the theoretical analysis framework, leading to a dearth of collaborative governance scenario simulation studies for optimizing the carbon effect of the land use system among different stakeholders; and the absence of cost-benefit analysis in carbon effect scenario simulations, etc. In the future, more attention should be given to deepen the research on the complex system theoretical framework and perspective of the carbon effect of the land use system, strengthen the research on the governance mechanism and path of the carbon effect of the land use system, and expand the research on the synergistic path of carbon neutrality of the land use system, etc., which will provide theoretical support and practical reference for optimization of national land space in the context of the dual carbon goals.
Wilderness portray the dynamic process of natural succession, and their special location, superior service function and irreplaceable ecological value have attracted widespread attention. Scholars have actively discussed wilderness. However, there are few systematic explanations of wilderness under the threshold of urbanization, which constrains its value judgment and scientific management. We established a logical line of "connotation identification - development network - framework construction" in this paper. Firstly, we sorted out the concepts, characteristics, attributes, types and succession of wilderness, analysed their mechanisms, and put forward the conceptual model of "one and two sides" of urban and wilderness evolution, which depicts the dynamic interaction mechanism between wilderness and cities. Secondly, we summarized the four thematic stages of "wilderness development - wilderness identification - wilderness protection - wilderness symbiosis" based on the differences between literature measurement and regional studies. Finally, we constructed a framework for the study of wilderness from four aspects, including the connotation of wilderness, wilderness identification, wilderness cognition and wilderness protection. Based on the above, this study points out the direction of wilderness research, and we hope to provide new ideas for the construction of Chinese-style modernization in which human beings live in harmony with nature.
Innovative methods for evaluating the effectiveness of ecological restoration planning in national land space are of great practical significance for optimizing ecological restoration management policies, consolidating the ecological restoration process and enhancing the effectiveness of ecological restoration. On the basis of combing the research progress at home and abroad, and based on the demand for monitoring and evaluating the implementation effectiveness of China's ecological restoration planning, this paper takes Hubei province as a case study area, and based on fieldwork and research, and relying on departmental data, adopts the methods of hierarchical analysis and expert consulting to study the evaluation method of the implementation effectiveness of ecological restoration planning for the national land space. The results show that: (1) The indicator system for assessing the effectiveness of ecological restoration planning based on the dimensions of "implementation progress" and "goal achievement" can objectively reflect the effectiveness of the current implementation of ecological restoration planning. (2) The implementation of ecological restoration planning for national land and space in Hubei is progressing well, and the "implementation progress" and "goal achievement" dimensions of ecological restoration planning can be objectively reflected. The assessment results of "implementation progress" and "goal achievement" are 67.97 points and 86.40 points, respectively, and the stage-by-stage "goal achievement" effect is better than that of "implementation progress". "On the whole, the scores are higher in the areas of "project implementation and condition construction", while the scores in the areas of "financing and project management" are higher due to insufficient participation of social capital and unsound project supervision mechanism. Overall, the scores are higher in "project implementation and condition construction", while in "financing and project management", due to insufficient participation of social capital and inadequate project supervision mechanism, the effectiveness needs to be improved; from the point of view of "target achievement", the effectiveness of ecological protection target is better than that of restoration and management target, and the fulfillment of relevant binding indexes is better than the expected indexes in the plan. (3) The indicator system and methodology for evaluating the effectiveness of ecological restoration planning are operational, the results of the evaluation can objectively reflect the effectiveness of ecological restoration planning, and the results of the study are recognized by the local government.
The "multi-plan integration" necessitates a refined level of detail in territorial and spatial planning, which requires the support of fine "urban built-up areas" spatial data. However, previous efforts in urban-rural identification have lacked a unified conceptual definition and standardization for "urban built-up area", thus impacting the accuracy, reliability, and comparability of statistical data and posing obstacles to informed decision-making. To address this issue, the "Code of Practice for Standard Urban Built-up Area Delineation", released in June 2021, introduced a systematic framework for defining and delineating urban built-up areas. This framework relies on two core principles: high-precision surveying and assessments of the living environment, establishing "urban built-up area" focused on the residential environment and "physical urban built-up area" centered on actual built-up areas. This achievement has been applied in land use monitoring and other domains. However, the existing delineating method of urban built-up areas is still in the preliminary construction stage. It needs to be perfected through practice in the future.
