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Human Dimension of Forest and Wildlife Protection

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A special issue of Diversity (ISSN 1424-2818). This special issue belongs to the section "Biodiversity Conservation".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (1 January 2023) | Viewed by 10123

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Special Issue Editors

Dr. Yi Xie

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Guest Editor

School of Economics & Management, Beijing Forestry University, Beijing 100083, China
Interests: human-wildlife conflict; protected area-community conflict; public publication in forest and wildlife conservation; forest econcomics; forest governance
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Brendan Moyle

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor

School of Economics and Finance, Massey University, Auckland PB 102904, New Zealand
Interests: wildlife economics; forestry economics; environmental economics
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Prof. Dr. Peichen Gong

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Guest Editor

Department of Forest Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences, 750 07 Uppsala, Sweden
Interests: forest management under conditions of uncertainty; forestry decision analysis; forest sector modeling and simulation; forest policy
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Forest and wildlife are two indispensable components of biodiversity. The status of both has a large impact on sustainable development. Nonetheless, forest degradation and associated wildlife extinction have occurred globally for centuries. This has been driven by the unregulated utilization of resources, often for economic development, and the failed production of sustainable development for dependent human communities. There is a rising awareness in the global community that forest and wildlife protection is necessary to support sustainable development. In this Special Issue of Diversity, titled “Human Dimension of Forest and Wildlife Protection”, the current status of the public’s awareness of and attitude towards forest and wildlife protection issues shall be investigated. Empirical studies on public participation in forest and wildlife conservation in the context of rural development, climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic are a priority for publication, after passing peer review. Studies on unique forest types and associated endangered wildlife species are welcome.

Dr. Yi Xie
Dr. Brendan Moyle
Prof. Dr. Peichen Gong
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Diversity is an international peer-reviewed open access monthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

public participation in forest protection
public participation in wild conservation
forest protection and rural development
wild conservation and rural development

Related Special Issue

Human Dimension of Forest and Wildlife Protection: Second Edition in Diversity (1 article)

Published Papers (5 papers)

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Research

14 pages, 658 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Attitude Index of Local Communities toward Wildlife and Their Management Methods in Malaysia

by Siti Mastura Hasan and Sándor Csányi

Diversity 2023, 15(2), 202; https://doi.org/10.3390/d15020202 - 01 Feb 2023

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1918

Abstract

Wildlife have an important role in the lives of local people and conservation practitioners in Malaysia because of their rare and elusive status, socioeconomic impacts, and management conflicts. However, few studies have evaluated the local attitudes toward wildlife and their management methods in Malaysia. In this study, we used indices to measure attitudes toward wildlife and their management methods in Malaysia. The iterative item reliability analysis was executed on online questionnaire data from a random sample of 585 local respondents using Cronbach’s alpha. The result yielded two indices of locals’ attitudes; (i) Wildlife Attitude Index (WAI); and (ii) Wildlife Management Method Attitude Index (WMMAI). The WAI had a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.71 and the WMMAI had a Cronbach’s alpha coefficient of 0.73. The following variables had significant determinants of WAI and WMMAI in Malaysia: (i) gender; (ii) age; (iii) level of education; (iv) residential area; (v) familiarity (experience); and (vi) nature engagement. These attitude indices could be significant in assisting conservation practitioners and decision-makers in understanding locals’ attitudes to prioritize wildlife management practices and showing the relationship between management and local demographics with the assumption that high-scoring individuals are more likely to favor wildlife conservation initiatives and activities. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human Dimension of Forest and Wildlife Protection)

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31 pages, 5052 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Quantifying the Evolution of Giant Panda Habitats in Sichuan Province under Different Scenarios

by Zhenjiang Song, Baoshu Wu, Wenguang Xiong, Lan Gao and Yi Li

Diversity 2022, 14(10), 865; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14100865 - 13 Oct 2022

Viewed by 1551

Abstract

The giant panda (Ailuropoda melanoleuca) is a relic species in China and a flagship species in the field of endangered wildlife conservation. The conservation of the giant panda’s habitat has gained widespread attention for this reason. Historically, Chinese Giant Panda Nature Reserves are surrounded by communities and the resource utilization behavior of households disturbs the giant panda habitat. Changes in these communities and in Giant Panda Nature Reserves began around 2010, with the feminization and aging of the farm labor force. These changes brought different resource utilization behaviors that led to different evolutionary tendencies in giant panda habitats. This research study assesses the impact of these tendencies based on data from the fourth survey of the giant panda in the Sichuan Province and from geographic information data. The paper aims to uncover the internal mechanisms of farmers’ resource utilization behavior in terms of the changes wrought to giant panda habitats. The paper simulates the future habitat of the giant panda based on the LUCC (land use/cover change) model to identify anticipated changes in future landscape patterns and the habitat quality of giant pandas under the current scenarios. The paper analyzes the spatial-temporal change of landscape patterns through the land use transfer matrix, based on the Markov model. The results of the scenario analyses illustrate the spatial and temporal difference in habitat quality. The driving mechanism for landscape pattern change is explored using the logistic regression model. The paper simulates the variation tendency of giant panda habitats under differential labor force structures and resource utilization behavior based on the CA (cellular automata) model, with the robustness of the results verified by participatory experiment. Through four scenarios of simulated farm labor force structure and resource utilization behavior, results suggest that the quality of giant panda habitats in the future will be relatively high when workforce feminization and aging is intense and resource utilization behavior is weakened. The simulated results confirm that the current agricultural labor force structure can reduce the intensity of resource utilization behavior. In this scenario, disturbance to giant panda habitats would decrease and their quality would improve. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human Dimension of Forest and Wildlife Protection)

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18 pages, 707 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Community Governance, Financial Awareness, and Willingness to Participate in National Park Development: Evidence from the Giant Panda National Park

by Wenting Feng, Anxin Wu, Lan Yao, Bei Jin, Zhijun Huang, Min Li, Han Zhang and Hao Ji

Diversity 2022, 14(7), 582; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14070582 - 21 Jul 2022

Cited by 2 | Viewed by 1866

Abstract

Taking the Giant Panda National Park as an example, this paper uses factor analysis to measure residents’ financial awareness and mediating effect models to investigate the influence paths of community governance, financial awareness, and residents’ willingness to participate in the construction and development of national parks. Finally, it suggests potential solutions for national park development and biodiversity conservation. The results indicated that financial awareness and community governance levels had a positive effect on residents’ willingness to participate, and satisfaction with community governance played a significant partially mediating role in their financial awareness, which in turn influenced their level of willingness. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human Dimension of Forest and Wildlife Protection)

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18 pages, 667 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Predictors of the Behavioral Intention to Participate in Saiga Antelope Conservation among Chinese Young Residents

by Tingyu Yang, Elena Druică, Zhongyi Zhang, Yuxuan Hu, Giuseppe T. Cirella and Yi Xie

Diversity 2022, 14(5), 411; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14050411 - 23 May 2022

Viewed by 2070

Abstract

Promoting public participation is a practical move to strengthen wildlife conservation. This study focuses on saiga antelope (Saiga tatarica), an endangered species which has received international concern. Based on an extended version of the Theory of Planned Behavior and a sample of 536 Chinese residents aged 16–40 collected through an online survey, we applied Partial Least Squares Structural Equation Modeling to explore the predictors of the behavioral intention to participate in saiga antelope conservation. The results show that perceived behavioral control is the most influential predictor that contributes to the value of the behavioral intention, followed by injunctive norm, attitude to participation, knowledge of saiga antelope, experience of wildlife conservation, and attitude to saiga antelope, altogether explaining 48.4% of the variance of the behavioral intention. To promote public participation in saiga antelope conservation, strengthening science popularization and broadening the channels of participation are suggested. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human Dimension of Forest and Wildlife Protection)

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17 pages, 1223 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Behavioral Intention to Resist the Consumption of Wild Animals in China: Netizen Survey

by Zhongyi Zhang, Tingyu Yang, Yuxuan Hu, Giuseppe T. Cirella and Yi Xie

Diversity 2022, 14(5), 343; https://doi.org/10.3390/d14050343 - 28 Apr 2022

Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1789

Abstract

Since the beginning of 2020, China has banned the consumption of wild animals to combat the spread of zoonoses. Most existing studies focus on the intention and behavior of wildlife consumption and their causes; however, few have looked at public willingness to resist wildlife consumption, as well as the cause and effects of such actions. In this study, a framework for an extended theory of planned behavior was constructed. Based on a 7-point Likert scale, a sample of 1194 respondents from eight provinces across China was obtained through an online survey. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze netizen behavioral intention to resist consuming wild animals and their causes to provide a reference for the implementation and optimization of relevant policies. The study model passed the goodness-of-fit test, confirming the robustness of the results. The results showed that Chinese netizens’ intention to resist consuming wild animals was moderate, with 55.19% willing to participate in activities against it, i.e., it is important to resist eating wild animals as a standard. Attitude, subjective norm, perceived behavioral control, and past experience of the Chinese netizen had significant positive effects on resistance intention, i.e., (1) netizens’ current living area with severe outbreaks were more likely to resist wildlife consumption, (2) highly knowledge level netizens were more likely to resist wildlife consumption than less knowledgeable ones, and (3) lower income level had higher behavioral intentions of netizens. The findings suggest that the government must take a lead role in wildlife protection and strengthen its restrictions, laws, and regulations. The media should also be used to promote conservation and popularize a protective message in favor of wild animals. Public quality and assurance of wildlife protection should be culturally reinforced to effectively ban the illegal trade of wild animals and their products. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Human Dimension of Forest and Wildlife Protection)

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