Establishment of the management effectiveness assessment system of world natural heritage and empirical analysis—a case study of Fanjingshan

Abstract

Although there are more than 270,000 protected areas worldwide, there is currently little data on their protection and management effectiveness. As a kind of protected area, natural world heritage (WH) sites are small but represent some of the most important natural landscapes, covering a very large area. But natural WH is threatened by climate change, natural disasters and human activities. Therefore, to achieve the sustainable development of WH sites, it is very important to analyze the management status of WH sites. Based on this, the study extracts inspiration from Enhancing our Heritage Toolkit: Assessing management effectiveness of natural World Heritage sites. An assessment system of the management effectiveness (ME) of natural WH sites has been established, which has three dimensions (including management foundation, management measures, and management performances) and 21 indexes. The reliability and validity of the index system are tested using the exploratory factor analysis method, and the results show that the index system has good reliability and validity. Then principal component analysis and comprehensive assessment methods are used to analyze the ME of the Fanjingshan WH site. The results show that the management effectiveness of the Fanjingshan WH Site is relatively excellent, but it still faces challenges from tourism development and community participation.