The role of seasonality in assessments of conflict tendency between tourism development and ecological preservation in protected areas: The case of protected areas in China

Abstract

Conflict management in PAs (Protected Areas) is becoming increasingly important in the context of the rapid development of nature-based tourism. Literature proposes the Index of Conflict tendency between Tourism development and ecological Protection (ICTP) to analyze the tendency of conflict from a spatial perspective, but this index does not consider the factor of seasonality which is important in tourism. The current study considers seasonality and proposes the CVD (Coverage- Variation- Duration) framework to conduct a spatio-temporal analysis of the ICTP. The applied research based on the case of China's V-PAs (a specific category of PAs) reflects that the CVD framework can describe the spatial distribution of the ICTP from a seasonal perspective. The study finds that, among V-PAs in China, 42.16% of the areas with high ICTP of V-PAs have obvious seasonal variations, which shows that PAs conflict management must incorporate the factor of seasonality. The study also shows that 8.98% of V-PAs have large-scale coverage of areas with high ICTP, revealing priorities for conflict management. 3.96% of V-PAs have large-scale coverage of areas with high ICTP showing seasonal changes. Management in these areas should pay attention to seasonal changes to become more effective. The CVD framework proposed in this paper is operable and extendable and can provide analytical tools for PAs conflict management, and promote ecological protection and more sustainable tourism development in PAs.

Keywords: Conflict tendency; Ecological protection; Protected areas; Seasonality; Tourism.