Governance of Biodiversity Conservation in China And Taiwan

Cash-starved managers of provincial and municipal-level PAs then become
entrepreneurial. Managers of areas with charismatic fauna, or other aesthetic
values, emphasize eco-tourism. Staff in reserves with exploitable natural
resources began to develop them. This increases revenues for administration
of the reserves but obviously has deleterious effects on the ecosystem and
species being protected. Glacy describes the village Zhongdian in the
northwest Yunnan Province, adjacent to a wetlands reserve with a population
of endangered birds including black-necked cranes. The village’s natural
attractions (mountain scenery, hot springs, Tibetan culture) recommended
establishment of a tourism business:

‘To facilitate Zhongdian’s development, an airport capable of international flights

was built. It was built adjacent to the wetlands habitat supporting the wildlife, with

aircraft taking off and landing directly over the black-necked crane habitat.

Concurrent with construction of the airport, an EIA was completed by the local

environmental protection bureau. The construction process itself caused impacts of

noise, increased human population, aircraft-bird collisions, and many other negative

effects that were essentially ignored. As of 2002, interviews with local residents

reported that the population of black-necked cranes decreased.’^45

Harkness argues that ‘Conservation remains a largely unfunded mandate even
inside the nature reserve system, with fiscal pressures leading some reserve
managers to cannibalize the very resources they are supposed to protect’.^46
Further examples of such revenue-raising activities include:

‘[T]ourism that relies on construction of damaging infrastructure, hotels, zoos, and

specimen collections, cultivation of food crops, forest, reed and bamboo plantations

and fish farming and other types of aquaculture, even though these activities are

forbidden within NRs.’^47

This perverse set of incentives; the perceived need to exploit a nature reserve’s
biological diversity in order to fund its operation – as well as infrastructure
development and ‘knock-on effects of disturbance in the food web’^48 – may
cause loss of biodiversity on a substantial scale.^49 In sum, financial problems
challenge the most basic function of PAs, the preservation of species and
ecosystems.^50

Human Resources and Training

The PATF report criticizes management standards in nature reserves in these
terms:

‘Nature Reserves in China have initiated many questionable practices, such as

captive breeding, unnecessary or damaging habitat manipulation, artificial feeding,

Protected areas and biodiversity conservation 113