Ethnic-Culture-Based Nature Conservation In Northwestern Yunnan Of China

To tackle with increasing contradictions among population, resources, and environment, social science and physical science are more and more interpenetrated and combined in the development of sciences all over the world. This trend in the study of relationships between human and nature satisfies the sustainability of human societies. Strategies for managing protected areas have reached community-based conservation (CBC) after experiencing fortress-like protection, joint management or co-management. Local communities are recognized as a key factor of nature conservation. There are, however, both theoretical and technical bottlenecks to merge social and physical factors. CBC strategy is also questioned because of difficulties in balancing protection and development. Merging two kinds of factors becomes the key in contemporary biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management.Three Parallel Rivers of Yunnan Protected Areas in NW Yunnan, a global prioriety hotspot for biodiversity conservation, was listed in world natural heritages in July2003. There are very rich biodiversities in the area because of special geographic locality, complicated landforms, diverse soil and climate conditions. Mt. Gaoli-gongshan in the area was acclaimed as a gene bank of species. NW Yunnan is also a unique place that presents multi-ethnicities, multi-religions, and various custom. In the core area of NW Yunnan, there are two national nature reserves, the Gaoli-gongshan (Nujiang) Nature Reserve and the Baima-Xueshan Nature Reserve. More than10minorities, including Tibetan, Lisu, and Nu, live in Gongshan, Fugong, Deqin, and Weixi counties adjacent to nature reserves. Each of minorities has created specific and colorful cultural practice systems, through which they links to natural ecosystems. Those cultural practices in reverse influence the strategies, approaches and effectiveness of nature conservation.To tackle with the difficulties of merging social and physical factors in implementing CBC strategy, this study proposed an approach to integrate these two factors in ethnic communities adjacent to nature reserves. The study aimed to reveal incorporating mechanisms between social culture and biophysical environment through detailed investigation, reliable computation at local scale. The outcomes were expected to provide theoretical supports for implementing CBC. In the adjacent area of two national nature reserves in NW Yunnan,12townships,18ethnic communities were chosen as study pilots. By using interdisciplinary (ecology, sociology and systems science) methods, the following aspects were carried out:1) Fundamentals of incorporating ethnic culture and natural environment;2) Spatial and functional linkages between ethnic cultural system (culsystem) and natural ecosystem;3) Key nodes of the linkages between culsystem and ecosystem; and4) Ethnic-culture-based nature conservation model. And primary applications of the results were also given in the end.Results showed:1) Ethnic culture emerges during the processes that ethnic groups know, transform, and acclimatize natural environments. Its formation and evolution are influenced and restricted by social property in, the group and natural conditions of environment as well. Culsystem contains psychological, institutional, and material strata, among which there are controlling and regulating mechanisms.2) Natural ecosystem containing57formations in13sub-types of8vegetation types carries biodiversity and cultural diversity of NW Yunnan. Ethnic communities in3distribution types and4sub-types link closely to natural ecosystems spatially and functionally.3) Traditional uses of natural resources are key nodes between culsystem and ecosystem, each of which has its properties such as connection type, strength, size, and resources used, etc. Key nodes can be expressed in3quantitative variables, i.e., frequency (p), strength (q), and area (s).4) Ethnic-culture-based conservation model is constructed through embedding intervention strategies in the linkages of culsystem and ecosystem, which include strategy S affecting psychological stratum, strategy M acting on institutional stratum, and strategy A that acts on material stratum.The results revealed that simply balancing interests of stakeholders as did in CBC could not really coordinate relationships between local communities and nature reserves, because what we tackle with is an ethnic culsystem. Regulating culsystem requires understanding its hierarchical structures, running mechanism, and its linkages with natural ecosystems. In this sense, systematic intervention needs to be adopted, so that the relations between two systems can be regulated entirely. Moreover, previous ethnic culture studies can be placed into the fundamental framework created in this study according to their properties. Such may help to incorporate unrelated findings achieved at discrete strata, so as to form integral knowledge about ethnic culture and nature conservation. The results also suggested that studies on mono-element of culsystem should take other elements at the same stratum, as well as elements at other strata in account. At last, primary application showed that the results are applicable in biodiversity conservation and ecosystem management in particular in ethnic regions.