| Nature reserves are important carriers of ecological development and significant support for eco-tourism. How to build a reasonable tourism ecological compensation mechanism centering on solving external problems in tourism development is an important question in the studies on tourism sustainable development and ecological compensation in nature reserves. The paper takes nature reserves (the social-economical-natural complex system) as the research objects, looks into relevant domestic and international practices in protecting nature reserves, takes several domestic nature reserves as case studies to make the following researches with the research method of deductive proof and inductive analysis, field survey, model construction and comparison analysis:(1) Exploration of the operational mechanism of tourism ecological compensation in nature reservesTourist development in nature reserves brings changes to ways in converting service value of the ecological system, to requirements for maintaining the ecological service function, and to the supporting force for ecological protection. Meanwhile, tourist development also has impact on the ecological and economic interests landscape in nature reserves. Currently, ecological compensation in domestic nature reserves are confronted with the problems of inadequate funding sources, small scope of compensation receivers, solitary approaches, unreasonable compensation standards and the lack of consideration for community compensation. The establishment of tourism ecological compensation mechanism is well adaptive to expand funding channel for ecological compensation, diversify the ways and scope of compensation, and increase the participation of relevant stakeholders in ecological compensation.Stakeholders of tourism ecological compensation in nature reserves can be divided into three different categories:the core stakeholders, the closely related stakeholders and the periphery stakeholders. Implementation of tourism ecological compensation will lead to changes of interest structure for different stakeholders, especially the core stakeholders. Starting from the impact of compensation on relevant stakeholders to analyze interest allocation among them in the compensation process, a structural model demonstrating different stakeholders’interest relationships in tourism ecological compensation system can be built.The formation of tourism ecological compensation mechanism in nature reserves is the joint results of internal and external factors. External factors refer to the researches on and practices of tourism ecological compensation, the demand for exploring the eco-tourist environment protection path, and the optimal choices for ecological compensation machasim in nature reserves. While internal factors include the requirements to internalize the external cost in tourism development in nature reserves and the requirements to internalize the external benefits in tourist ecological protection and development. The current situation is that toursim ecological compensation is confronted with institutioanl, legal, conceptional and technical barriers, which have brought various restrictions for the implementation of ecological compensation.(2) Basic framework for the implementation path of tourism ecological compensation in nature reservesThe implementation path of tourism ecological compensation in nature reserves is an analysis framework, which can be built and explained from the respects of operational mechanism, ways and standards of implementation, and the supporting system. The compensation operational mechanism can be divided into government-led mechanism, market-oriented operational mechanism and social participation mechanism. Government-led mechanism includes public payment for tourism ecology and tourism ecological compensation funds. Market-oriented operational mechanism includes direct market transaction compensation, taxes and fees for tourism ecological compensation and the promotion of tourist marks. Social participation mechanism includes the compensation by social benefit organizations, participation of community residents, involvement of private capital, and investment for tourism ecological protection. In terms of the demands of compensation receivers, tourism ecological compensation can be divided into direct and indirect compensation for the natural ecosystem, blood-transfusing and blood-creating ways of compensation for community residents, and material, spiritual as well as institutional compensation for tourism ecological protectors. In terms of the implementation carriers, tourism ecological compensation can be implemented through the ways of cash, material, intellectual, policy and project compensation. In terms of the requirements to internalize the tourist development cost and external benefit of tourism ecological protection, standards of tourism ecological compensation can be calculated from the positive and negative external perspectives. Supporting systems for tourism ecological compensation in nature reserves include institutional support, management support and technical support. Institutional support refers to compensation laws and policies. Management support refers to the establishment of compensation organizational and oversight management systems as well as the practices of reasonable publicity and guidance. Technical support concerns scientific studies on and performance evaluation of tourism ecological compensation in nature reserves.(3) Analysis of characteristics of tourism ecological compensation path in nature reserves at home and abroadMany nature reserves abroad have the practice of including tourism ecological compensation in tourist development and the characteristics of their compensation paths can be summarized as follows. Compensation funds coming from relevant proportions of the tickets and franchising operation are important funding sources of resources and environment maintenance in nature reserves, which are also supplementary channels for protection funding from government budget. Compensation funds are mostly used for resources and environmental protection and facility maintenance in nature reserves. The funds are usually under vertical management featured with the separation of revenues and expenditures.Some domestic nature reserves have adopted the approaches of tourism ecological compensation such as paid use of resources, fees for resources maintenance and fees for resources management. The general characteristics of these approaches are as follows. Compensation subjects are generally tourist business. There are diversified ways and standards of collecting compensation funds, which include collecting relative proportion of business revenues as compensation funds, collecting certain quota as compensation funds, collecting compensation funds according to project space, and collecting different amount of compensation funds for operational projects and non-operational projects. Compensation receivers cover both natural environment and community residents. Compensation funds are taken as non-tax government revenues while revenues and expenditures are managed separately.Based on the practices of tourism ecological compensation at home and abroad, analysis and summaries can be carried out under the basic framework of implementation path of tourism ecological compensation and thereby inspirations for domestic nature reserves can be provided.(4) Analysis of tourism ecological compensation paths in typical nature reservesExperience and practice of tourism ecological compensation in the two nature reserves of Yulong Snow Mountain and Xishuangbanna both have certain representativeness. Yulong Snow Mountain has developed the compensation fund-raising channels for the natural environment such as charging environmental protection fees in the cableway ticket. Yulong Snow Mountain has also adopted the practice of letting tourist development support local communities as well as snowballing and differentiated patterns of tourism ecological compensation. Xishuangbanna has established a system for tourism ecological compensation in which tourist sites pay for the compensation, government budget repays the compensation to tourist sites, while ecological protection department takes the charge of compensation implementation. Meanwhile, differentiated and dynamic compensation standards have also been formulated for different kinds of tourist projects.Surveys on local residents’ opinions of the contribution made by existing compensation patterns and their willingness to continue to receive the compensation show that the residents are generally positive towards different kinds of compensation patterns in Yulong Snow Mountain. But contribution of different compensation patterns to household wellbeing and community development varies greatly. In addition, for most of the compensation patterns, residents’ share the same views towards their willingness to continue the receiving of compensation and their opinions on the contribution of compensation. However, marked differences are demonstrated for that of tourist franchising operation and ecological protection education. Generally speaking, there is still great room for improvement of tourism ecological compensation policy in this nature reserve. With consideration for long-term development of community tourism ecological compensation, the blood-creating pattern that is conducive to community development such as tourist franchising operation and participation in tourist business management should be strengthened. Surveys on Xishuangbanna show that although many good practices in the establishment of tourism ecological compensation system and relevant standards can be drawn on, compensation patterns still can be improved due to the impact of policy concepts, management system and techniques. For instance, the process of sating up compensation standards is actually the result of gaming among different interest groups. Fiscal funds for ecological compensation cannot meet the real funding demand. Oversight and evaluation of the use of compensation funds can still be improved.(5) Exploration of the basic implementation path for tourism ecological compensation in nature reservesChoices for compensation path based on the basic goals of and requirements for tourism ecological compensation in nature reserves have common demands, which include the building of basic compensation operational mode, compensation implementation standards and institutional arrangement for compensation. In terms of compensation operational mode, tourist developers and operators, tourists, local governments and management department in nature reserves should be the main players responsible for ecological compensation, while the compensation receivers should be the natural ecological system, local residents having long-term symbiotic relationship with environment in nature reserves as well as tourist ecological protectors. Compensation should be implemented with market compensation (fees paid by the developers and users) as the major way, and government public compensation as well as voluntary social compensation as the supplementary ways. Meanwhile, it’s essential to set up an effective compensation organizational and management department and mechanisms for compensation oversight and performance evaluation. The establishment of compensation standards mainly includes calculation methods of tourism ecological compensation for natural environment in nature reserves, for tourist ecological protectors and constructers as well as for local residents. In terms of institutional and policy arrangements for ecological compensation, it’s essential to start with the important links such as the establishment, implementation and oversights of compensation management system so as to put in place a multi-leveled management system for tourism ecological compensation in nature reserves. Meanwhile, after taking into considerations factors such as tourist development status, compensation capacity, as well as demands and willingness of relevant compensation responsibility takers, reasonable policies for the collection, use and management of compensation funds should be formulated so that the realistic obstacles to compensation implementation can be removed.This dissertation has made innovative researches in the following three aspects. Firstly, based on adaptive analysis of tourism ecological compensation for nature reserves, this dissertation explores operational mechanisms for tourism compensation in nature reserves by looking into the characteristics of compensation interest relationship, the motivation mechanism for compensation and the obstacles to compensation implementation. Secondly, this dissertation has built a basic framework of the implementation path of tourism ecological compensation in nature reserves, and has deconstructed and explained the path from the aspects of compensation operational mechanism, implementation mode and standards, as well as the supporting systems. Thirdly, based on the experience of Yulong Snow Mountain and Xishuangbanna, this dissertation has basically set up performance evaluation approaches for the implementation path of tourism ecological compensation. |
PDF Full Text Request