Study On Ecotourism Environment Carrying Capacity Of Hulunbeier Grassland In Inner Mongolia, China

Ecotourism can be viewed as a cross-discipline and new development of Ecology and Tourism, because it is the best way to fit the tourism in harmony with environmental protection. Fast growth of the ecotourism can help to accelerate the environmental education and natural conservation. Up till now, few have been recognized as the truly grassland ecotourism market and in a mature visitor management stage in China. One of the most important resons why we are facing such a difficulty situation is that the tourism and environment protection are the opposite or contradict toward the grassland ecotourism development.In order to have the grassland resources protect and grassland tourism sustainable development, in this study, taking scenic area resources and tourist experience into consideration, the evaluation index system for the ecotourism environmental carrying capacity (EECC) of grassland was set up using the way of field investigation and laboratory analysis, while the evaluating index standard was graded and formed the evaluating flow diagram for the EECC of grassland. All these would benefit to coordinate the relation among the population, environment protection, grassland resources protecting and economic and social development, which mean a lot to utilizing and protecting ecological environment in a rational way.EECC, as a framework and method to plan the grassland ecotourism and manage the grassland ecotourism resources, was used to assess the EECC of Hulunbeier grassland in this paper. According to assessment results and local actual circumstances, some managing suggestions to settle the conflict between grassland ecological environment protection and tourism district development were provided from a technical level, the policy level and management level, which would be conducive to guide the tourism demand, create a positive interactive environment between tourism developing and environment protection. Main results are as following.(1) Exploiting ecotourism depends on the demanding prospect of ecotourism market. On investigation and analysis of the grassland ecotourism market and tourists satisfaction, results showed that grassland ecotourism has still been in mass tour operating stage and visitor's behavioral trait inclined towards the performance of mass tourism tourists. So there were various drawbacks and potential threats to tourism interests and environment.(2) There are abundant grassland ecotourism resources in Hulunbeier. Diversity of the grassland ecotourism resources with superior grade can offer value from entertainment, esthetics, cultural, education and other for mankind. In actual stage, grassland ecotourism resources of Hulunbeier can be divided into two main categories—grassland natural landscape and grassland manmade sceneries. Nine sub-categories are grassland geological structure landscape, water landscape, biological landscape, climatic and meteorological landscape, ruins and sites, humanistic landscape, constructions and facilities, grassland tourist commodities and grassland animal husbandry.(3) Grassland ecosystem relevant to many factors of social, economic and ecology is a complex system. The indicator system including thirty indicators was established with the frequency analysis, theory analysis, and expert counseling method to evaluate the EECC of different grassland. Weight of indicators was computed by Analytic Hierarchy Process (AHP).17 core indexes for evaluating grassland EECC were selected by categorized and optimized out on the contributive rates of indexes.(4) Over the years from 2004 to 2009, the comprehensive value and every norms value of EECC in Hulunbeier grassland all kept increasing. Among which the fastest pace in economic environment carrying capacity, it rose rapidly and droved the growth of ECC value in tour areas. Social environment carrying capacity with high starting point was in a stage to increase slowly. The lowest growth was natural environment carrying capacity and the value of it was the lowest.(5) The EECC magnitude of Hulunbeier grasslands was put an exact figure. The value of carrying capacity closer to 1 meant that developing of local tourism was close to the lowest levels of indicators. Then the utilization, planning, development and management of local ecotourism were unreasonable and a balance between nature bearable threshold and Human development would be upset soon. The value of Hulunbeier grassland EECC in 2009 was 0.726, in a mild overload range (0.61-0.8). With the increase of visitor numbers, measures must be taken to meet the situation to reduce the damage to the Hulunbeier grassland and relieve the pressure of local ecological environment.(6) EECC was a technical tool to serve the planning and management of ecotourism destinations. Assessment of the grassland EECC plays an important role in control and early warning of the effective operation of the grassland ecotourism. Being a good index and adjust measure for ecotourism sustainable development, the magnitude and the direction of EECC would show clearly the grassland ecological environment and development trend. Based on the assessment results, some advices on development and management of grassland ecotourism were put forward, which would give an impetus to the protection and restoration of resources and environment(7) In combination with the main problems of Hulunbeier tourism development, several management methods and monitoring technology to improve grassland EECC, such as institutions standardized, improve ruling ability, strengthen the propaganda and education, plan scientifically, district management, improve the monitoring and treatment of environment, would be come into effect as soon as possible. Do it this way may not only guarantee the quality of eco-tourists experience in resort, but it may ensure the local nature, social and environment quality to reduce the likelihood of damage by ecotourism activities as well.