Environmental and visitor management in a thousand protected areas in China

Abstract

a b s t r a c tChina has $8000 protected areas, with different categories and levels of designation. These include many reserves of global conservation significance. There are more numerous but smaller parks in the more heavily populated provinces of the south and east, and fewer larger parks in the northwest. We sampled 1200 representative parks nationwide, using questionnaires delivered to park managers in person, with 160 categorical or ordinal parameters. Response rate was 92.5%. We carried out three analyses: first, for each parameter independently; second, for five multi-parameter aggregate indices; and third, for two top-level indices of environmental and visitor management respectively. We tested for patterns by category, level, size, age, region, visitor volume and revenue, with >600 individual tests, and >70 patterns significant at p < 0.0001. We found that both environmental and visitor management practices are more intensive for large, old, rich, heavily visited parks. A number of parks receive >100,000 visitors per day, and have adopted large-scale infrastructure approaches which successfully minimise impacts and maintain conservation values, as confirmed by on-site audits. Key conservation concerns include off-park air and water pollution sources in some regions, and sale of items including threatened species, in 7% of parks.

A Chinese approach to protected areas: A case study comparison with the United States

“…Much of the new funding has gone toward infrastructure improvements, particularly infrastructure to accommodate visitors. Some of these infrastructure projects have been dramatic-e.g., cableways (present in 10% of protected areas nationally) and high elevators (up to 330 m at Wulingyuan) (Zhong et al, 2015). Visitation to national nature reserves has also increased substantially .…”

“…Whereas some reserves have received substantial funding-particularly the oldest and most visited reserves-surveys of managers and individual case studies reveal that many are underfunded relative to their needs (Zhong et al, 2015). Surveys across 1000 protected areas of all types, not just national nature reserves, found that 25% have annual revenues above US$771,000 (5 million CNY), whereas 38% operate on less than US$77,000 (500,000 CNY) and 11% on less than US$7700 (50,000 CNY) (Zhong et al, 2015).…”

“…Surveys across 1000 protected areas of all types, not just national nature reserves, found that 25% have annual revenues above US$771,000 (5 million CNY), whereas 38% operate on less than US$77,000 (500,000 CNY) and 11% on less than US$7700 (50,000 CNY) (Zhong et al, 2015). Because of this underfunding, illegal hunting, logging, water pollution, and illegal wildlife trade are problems in some reserves (roughly 6-15%, based on surveys) limiting their ability to protect resources (Zhong et al, 2015), although recent analyses suggest that reforestation efforts within protected areas have been successful at the national scale (Ren et al, 2015).…”

“…Quite a number of Chinese national nature reserves rely on income from visitors for a portion of their budget; thus reserves with higher visitation tend to have higher budgets, which can provide an incentive to increase visitation (Zhong et al, 2015). In recent years, many national nature reserves sold their tourism management rights to commercial companies, whose interests are primarily economic and whose development can increase threats to biodiversity in the reserves if not carefully managed.…”

“…The government has also called for enhancing conservation in the framework of national policies (CCCP, 2013;Cyranoski, 2016;Sang and Axmacher, 2016), and has invested heavily in improving and expanding protected areas (Li et al, 2016;Wang et al, 2012;Wu et al, 2011). Although these investments have been met with significant challenges and some skepticism (Huang, 2016;Wandesforde-Smith et al, 2014;Zheng and Cao, 2014;Zhong et al, 2015), they also represent important strides toward reducing the negative impacts of China's economic growth on the environment (Fu, 2008;Ren et al, 2015).…”