TY - JOUR
T1 - Evaluating Communities’Willingness to Participate in Ecosystem Conservation in Southeast Tibetan Nature Reserves, China
AU - Xu, Lingxia
AU - Xu, Wanyun
AU - Jiang, Chao
AU - Dai, Huxuan
AU - Sun, Qiaoqi
AU - Cheng, Kun
AU - Lee, Chun Hung
AU - Zong, Cheng
AU - Ma, Jianzhang
N1 - Funding Information:
This research was funded by the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities of China (Grant No. 2572020DZ11; Grant No. 2572020DR11) and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 31772469).
Publisher Copyright:
© 2022 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland.
PY - 2022/2
Y1 - 2022/2
N2 - Southeast Tibet is significant in maintaining key ecological functions and providing irreplaceable ecosystem services but is also extremely vulnerable and susceptible to the impacts of human activities. Understanding the attitudes of local residents toward ecosystem conservation is considered essential for nature resource management. We therefore aimed to conduct an evaluation framework under hypothetical scenarios to measure communities’ willingness to participate in ecosystem conservation using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Second, this study determined the underlying factors that might affect local’s willingness to participate and then compared the willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to work (WTW) for different types of nature reserves. We found that income, education, community attachment, and acceptance of a payment scheme are significant factors determining the average amount that residents are willing to pay for ecosystem conservation, while their income, acceptance of a work scheme, and education are significant factors influencing the average service time that residents are willing to devote to work. Our results revealed that community residents have considerable willingness to participate in ecosystem conservation, which points not only to the great value attached to the ecosystem service function of Southeast Tibet nature but also suggests that people’s willingness to participate is influenced by a conglomeration of socio-economic characteristics and their previous experience. The information herein can be used to implement conservation planning that involves community co-management and policymaking for sustainable development and will be beneficial to the dynamic conservation and adaptive management of Tibetan nature reserves.
AB - Southeast Tibet is significant in maintaining key ecological functions and providing irreplaceable ecosystem services but is also extremely vulnerable and susceptible to the impacts of human activities. Understanding the attitudes of local residents toward ecosystem conservation is considered essential for nature resource management. We therefore aimed to conduct an evaluation framework under hypothetical scenarios to measure communities’ willingness to participate in ecosystem conservation using the contingent valuation method (CVM). Second, this study determined the underlying factors that might affect local’s willingness to participate and then compared the willingness to pay (WTP) and willingness to work (WTW) for different types of nature reserves. We found that income, education, community attachment, and acceptance of a payment scheme are significant factors determining the average amount that residents are willing to pay for ecosystem conservation, while their income, acceptance of a work scheme, and education are significant factors influencing the average service time that residents are willing to devote to work. Our results revealed that community residents have considerable willingness to participate in ecosystem conservation, which points not only to the great value attached to the ecosystem service function of Southeast Tibet nature but also suggests that people’s willingness to participate is influenced by a conglomeration of socio-economic characteristics and their previous experience. The information herein can be used to implement conservation planning that involves community co-management and policymaking for sustainable development and will be beneficial to the dynamic conservation and adaptive management of Tibetan nature reserves.
KW - Community participation
KW - Economic evaluation
KW - Ecosystem conservation
KW - Southeast Tibet
KW - Types of nature reserves
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85125184971&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.3390/land11020207
DO - 10.3390/land11020207
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85125184971
SN - 2073-445X
VL - 11
JO - Land
JF - Land
IS - 2
M1 - 207
ER -