National park law to balance environment and interest

Editor's note: China's top legislature adopted a new law dedicated to promoting the high-quality development of national parks late last month. The national park law will take effect on Jan 1. China Environment News spoke with Wang Wei, a researcher at the Chinese Research Academy of Environmental Sciences, about how to reconstruct the balance between the public nature of natural resources and people's well-being through laws. Below are excerpts from the interview. The views don't necessarily represent those of China Daily.

In the process of promoting nationwide sharing, China's national parks face several major challenges and difficulties.

First, under the existing environmental protection and tourism development norms, the benefit distribution mechanism of China's national parks has become increasingly unbalanced. The standards for environmental compensation remain relatively low, and most of the revenue is concentrated in the hands of governments and enterprises.

Meanwhile, local communities lack institutionalized rights to negotiate in core areas such as planning, data use and benefit distribution. Their participation is mostly limited to labor-based positions. This constrains the realization of the national parks as public welfare.

Second, the scope of public participation in national park affairs is confined to basic activities such as education and volunteer services. In key areas such as park planning, policy formulation, supervision and evaluation, the channels for public participation are still insufficient, and a systematic and institutionalized mechanism has yet to be established. Most national parks' exploration of market-based mechanisms such as carbon sink trading, water rights trading and pollution rights trading remains relatively underdeveloped.

Third, the difficulty of balancing access and environmental protection is becoming increasingly prominent. On the one hand, the public's desire to experience nature continues to grow, and excess tourism in certain national parks has damaged ecosystems or led to waste pollution. On the other hand, some local residents, driven by short-term economic interests, have illegally built homestays in national parks.

The core of this contradiction lies in the absence of a "capacity control and benefit rebalance" mechanism. Although most national parks have set visitor capacity limits, they lack dynamic adjustment mechanisms to regulate the number of visitors based on seasonal changes or ecologically sensitive periods. Meanwhile, the supervision of local residents' commercial activities is inadequate.

To solve these problems, several measures are needed.

A dynamic capacity control system should be established to scientifically adjust visitor capacity based on vegetation coverage and wildlife activity. A reservation-based diversion system should be implemented to guide visitors rationally at different times in different areas through online booking, so as to effectively prevent resource overloading and concentrated ecological pressure.

A management mechanism that combines environmental compensation with constraints should be evolved. Communities that strictly comply with environmental protection regulations should receive additional environmental subsidies as positive incentives.

Meanwhile, those who illegally operate homestays or engage in unauthorized development should be placed on a blacklist and disqualified from participating in related benefit distribution.

Finally, the integration of community development with protection planning should be strengthened. National park master plans should clearly delineate "appropriate development zones" and "no-development zones" for local communities, guiding residents to develop ecological agriculture, traditional handicrafts and other green industries in areas that meet ecological protection requirements.

This approach would help prevent disorderly development and ensure that economic activities do not undermine the integrity of local ecosystems.