Community Development and Wildlife Conservation in the Establishment of Protected Areas

Global biodiversity governance and China's development of a national park-centered protected area system are advancing rapidly. The synergy between wildlife conservation and community development has emerged as a central issue for achieving green development and harmonious coexistence between humans and nature. However, a considerable tension exists between strict conservation policies and community aspirations for development. The recovery of wildlife populations intensifies human-wildlife conflict, while community pursuits of common prosperity can disturb habitats, making the contradiction between protection and utilization increasingly acute. To address this challenge, this forum brings together scholars from geography, management, landscape architecture, and anthropology. They employ diverse theoretical perspectives, including nature-based solutions, more-than-human approaches, spatial justice, and multispecies ethics, to analyze the causes, interactive mechanisms, and governance pathways for human-wildlife conflicts within protected areas systematically. Drawing on case studies such as the North Chinese leopard in Shanxi, desert cat in the Qilian Mountains, Bryde's whales in Beihai, Asian Elephant National Park, and crested ibis conservation, the discussion reveals a progressive spatial interaction spectrum ranging from traditional livelihood conflicts to challenges in adapting new business formats. It also identifies structural governance dilemmas including power imbalances, mismatched compensation mechanisms, and insufficient participation. This forum advocates for a shift in protected area governance from a single-species conservation model toward a social-ecological system governance approach. It proposes building differentiated coordination mechanisms, innovating ecological compensation and community co-management models, and integrating technological empowerment with local knowledge. By exploring collaborative pathways within a framework of spatial justice and multispecies coexistence, this discussion aims to provide theoretical support and practical insights for the high-quality construction of China's protected area system and the green transformation of its rural areas.