Assessment of the effectiveness of nature reserve management in China

Abstract

Assessing the management effectiveness of nature reserves is an effective way to promote management quality and achieve management targets. Using a questionnaire developed by the World Bank (WB) and the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) as a tool for tracking management effectiveness, we carried out a survey in 535 nature reserves in China to assess the management status quo in 2005. The results indicated that the indices related to management regulation, infrastructure and equipment, monitoring and evaluation, budget and community involvement produced relatively lower scores, while the indices related to management of protection targets and resources, setup of management agency and reserve boundary had better performances. The independent variables of reserve class, time since establishment, distribution region, economic condition and staff number exhibited strong correlations with the effective management of nature reserves. Pearson correlation coefficients were used to measure the association between the 3 assessment indices representing management effectiveness and other 28 assessment indices. Among these 28 assessment indices, the indices of personnel management, resource management, monitoring and evaluation, and management plan had more effects on the management effectiveness of nature reserves than other indices. When the most pressing management issues and influence factors have been identified, countermeasures can be implemented to improve the management of nature reserves.

Rapid Assessment Of Management Effectiveness Of The Zhangye National Wetland Park, Gansu Province, People’s Republic Of China

“…Similar to these other protected areas, the ZNWP scored higher in resource management and lower in community input to management, budget, and equipment needs. In contrast, in the ZNWP, progress with boundary delineation was scored low, and management systems and regulations were scored high (Table 1), the opposite of findings by Quan et al (2009Quan et al ( , 2011. Compared with the management performance of two other protected areas in different geographic settings, the Yellow River Delta National Nature Reserve (a coastal wetland in eastern PRC; He et al, 2012) and Pudacuo National Park (a forested mountain region in south-western PRC; Zhou & Grumbine, 2011), the ZNWP showed similar trends, with most government attention focused on tourism, limited or no biodiversity monitoring, incomplete boundary demarcation, and/or the possibility that some economic development may not comply with protected area regulations.…”

What Do the IUCN Categories Really Protect? A Case Study of the Alpine Regions in Spain

“…Furthermore, it is difficult to compare data obtained from monitoring populations or biodiversity between sites [70]. In practice, the most common approaches to evaluation have been qualitative, involving the use of scorecards, expert judgments and experience-based knowledge [70][71][72][73]. These evaluation methods do not necessarily directly link conservation interventions and conservation effects, except through the experts' own evaluations [70].…”

Conservation of Chinese Plant Diversity: An Overview

“…Lack of budget compromises reserves' protection duties: they are poorly or never patrolled, species and ecosystems are not satisfactorily monitored nor inventoried, and some reserves do not even have signposts delineating their borders (Qiu et al, 2009;Xu H. et al, 2009;Quan et al, 2011). In the recent study of Quan et al (2011), some worrying figures arose, such as a mere 2% of the nature reserves had enough financial support for their daily management activities, and that only ca. 11% had set up comprehensive monitoring systems.…”

“…Another consequence of lack of investment is the frequent failure of compensation schemes (subsidies, compensation fees) to the local people (a problem often aggravated by the widespread corruption among local officials), who may be against the establishment of new PAs because they feel that their interests are in conflict with nature preservation. Tourism creates opportunities for local people, but this should evolve towards sustainability, and planned and managed to combine biodiversity protection while ensuring adequate economic benefits to local communities (Quan et al, 2011). Engaging local communities in conservation activities as well as in the planning and management of reserves also constitutes a useful tool for the long-term sustainability of nature reserves, since the pressures placed on reserves by local residents are largely eased (McBeath & Leng, 2006;MacKinnon & Xie, 2008).…”