National Park Development in China: Conservation or Commercialization?

The rapid development of parks and ecotourism in China has attracted worldwide attention, not only for the beauty of the landscape that the parks are protecting but also for their abundant and often unique biodiversity. However, in some areas, the development of ecotourism has actually led to the de...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Ambio 2012-05, Vol.41 (3), p.247-261
Main Authors: Wang, Guangyu, Innes, John L, Wu, Sara W, Krzyzanowski, Judi, Yin, Yongyuan, Dai, Shuanyou, Zhang, Xiaoping, Liu, Sihui
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Atmospheric Sciences
Biodegradation
Biodiversity
Biodiversity conservation
China
Commerce
Commercialization
Conservation
Conservation of Natural Resources - economics
Conservation of Natural Resources - methods
Earth and Environmental Science
Ecology
Economics
Ecosystem
Ecotourism
Environment
Environmental Engineering/Biotechnology
Environmental Management
Environmental quality
Forest management
Forestry
Forestry development
forests
livelihood
National forests
National parks
Natural resource management
Natural resources
Nature
Pandas
Parks & recreation areas
Physical Geography
politics
Poverty
Protected areas
REVIEW PAPER
State forests
Sustainability
Sustainable forest management
Time Factors
Tourism
Travel
Wetlands
Wildlife conservation
Wildlife habitats
wildlife rehabilitation
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:The rapid development of parks and ecotourism in China has attracted worldwide attention, not only for the beauty of the landscape that the parks are protecting but also for their abundant and often unique biodiversity. However, in some areas, the development of ecotourism has actually led to the degradation of local ecological, economic, and social systems. Using National Forest Parks for demonstration, this article analyzes the current political, institutional, legal, environmental, and economic issues concerning National Parks in China, and examines their potential future development. Although the intention of National Park systems in China is to raise environmental quality, and to protect biodiversity and social livelihoods, their success has varied. Future success will be measured by their capacity to reduce poverty, to promote long-term rehabilitation of wildlife habitats, and to simultaneously protect Chinese culture and biodiversity.
ISSN:0044-7447
1654-7209
DOI:10.1007/s13280-011-0194-9