Low human impacts observed in strictly protected areas of China

Keywords: Protected area, Comprehensive human impact, Nature reserve, Conservation planning
Abstract Type: Virtual Lightning Paper Abstract

Abstract

Protected areas (PAs) are crucial for preserving biodiversity conservation and yet are often threatened by human activities. We identified four major categories of human impact stressors for detecting human activities on nature reserves (NRs, China’s principal category of PAs) of China, including land use transformation, population density, grazing, and human access. And then we analyzed the changes of human impacts within NRs from two dimensions/aspects to reveal their relationships with economic level and management level. We observed that human impact in China had shown a continuously growing trend since 2000, and on average, human impact was substantially lower in NRs than in the whole country. Furthermore, human impact in national NRs was lower than local level NRs in 2000-2020. Besides, it was clear that core zones have the least human impact compared to buffer zones and experimental zones. Lastly, specific policies are proposed to improve conservation planning and management. Our findings also provide useful insights into land use management and conservation planning.