Abstract
The relationship between ecological and socioeconomic systems in ecological function conservation areas (EFCAs) in China is analyzed from a governance perspective. Lashihai watershed in China’s southwestern Yunnan Province was chosen as a case study area, where leaders of 81 villager groups were interviewed through questionnaire surveys and anecdotal evidence was collected from focus group discussions. Our study found that the rehabilitated ecosystems in Lashihai, arising from conservation actions, provided the local communities with increasing natural capital to pursue horseback tourism as an important means of livelihood. Also, bonding social capital, together with unique cultural and ethnic assets, may have been instrumental in the formation of horseback tourism teams in some villager groups. However, the lack of higher-level government involvement and coordination among horseback tourism teams appeared to have led to a situation, where the rapidly developing tourism teams have started to impose threats on the wetland ecosystem. While highlighting some limitations of self-governance in adapting to complex and fast-changing socioeconomic conditions, the study called for the potential importance of fostering adaptive co-management to help modify the emerging undesired interconnectedness in social-ecological systems in Lashihai. For the future’s successful governance of integrated ecosystem management in EFCAs in China, the study also made brief discussion on some key elements of the adaptive co-management.
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Notes
The IEM approach is based on an ecosystem approach adopted as Decision V/6 by the COP5 (the Fifth Conferences of Parties) of the Convention of Biological Diversity in 2005 as the primary framework for actions under the Convention. See the link http://www.cbd.int/decision/cop/?id=7148 for details (COP5 2000). IEM has been implemented in United States, Canada, Australia and some developing countries (Clark et al. 1991; US EPA 1993; Dodge and Biette 1992; Mitchell and Hollick 1993).
The Three Parallel Rivers are the Yangtze (Jinsha), the Lancang (Mekong) and the Nujiang (Salween) rivers.
In 2009, the income per capita in this area was about RMB 2,425 yuan (US$ 365), which was much lower than the average income per capita in rural China (RMB 5,153 yuan) in 2009.
In China, a village serves as a fundamental organizational unit for its rural population. In general, rural areas are organized into administrative villages or village groups, with the latter as subordinate units of the former. The administrative village committees are bureaucratic entities.
The two nation-wide conservation programs were the Sloping Landing Conversion Program and the National Natural Forest Protection Program, both begun in 1998 after a catastrophic flood of the Yangtze River.
At the time of our surveys, three villager group leaders were not available. Thus, we only interviewed leaders of 81 villager groups.
It is important to note here that we did not intend to say that the strong bonding social capital was a sufficient condition for the formation of the horseback tourism teams. Rather, it was only a necessary condition. Indeed, as shown in the column 2 of the Table 3, in the villager groups without horseback tourism teams, the bonding social capital was also high, although in general it was slightly lower in these groups than that in the groups with the horseback tourism teams.
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Acknowledgments
This study is supported by the UNEP/GEF project implemented by MEP. It is jointly funded by Nature Conservation and Flood control in the Yangtze River Basin (C/IV/S/06/475); National Nature Science Funding Project No. 41201576, National Nature Science Funding Project No. 71203223, National Science and Technology Support Plan Project No. 2012BAC01B01, and Renmin University of China’s Humanity and Social Science International Journal Publication Cultivation Project No. 2011030354. We owe our gratitude to Professor Ma Zhong, Dr. Su De, He Jianbang and Li Xintong for their generous support and valuable advice throughout this project. We appreciate the help and support from Mr. Yang Zhang, Ms. Xiong Ping and other staff members at Lijiang Environmental Protection Bureau for the field work of this study. We also acknowledge Ms. Liu Hao and Ms. Yu Xiaoyang for their research assistance. Finally, we want to thank three anonymous reviewers for their thoughtful and helpful comments.
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Wu, J., Gong, Y., Zhou, J. et al. The governance of integrated ecosystem management in ecological function conservation areas in China. Reg Environ Change 13, 1301–1312 (2013). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-013-0445-3
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10113-013-0445-3