Impacts of Social Trust on Rural Households’ Attitudes Towards Ecological Conservation—Example of the Giant Panda Nature Reserves in China

Wei Duan,Nan Su,Yicheng Jiang,Jinyu Shen

doi:10.3390/f13010053

Abstract

Understanding rural households’ conservation attitudes is crucial to achieving biodiversity conservation effectiveness, and one underlying predictor of household conservation attitudes is social trust. This study examined the impact of rural households’ social trust on their ecological protection attitudes based on 922 rural household data around 13 giant panda nature reserves in Shaanxi Province and Sichuan Province, China. The results show that: (1) Social trust has a significant positive impact on rural households’ conservation attitudes. (2) Males’ ecological conservation attitudes are influenced by all the social trust variables, whereas females’ attitudes are influenced mainly by interpersonal trust (trust in neighbors and villagers). The conservation attitudes of households with higher education levels and higher family incomes are mainly affected by trust in government, while those with lower education levels and lower family incomes are more significantly affected by the trust in villagers and village cadres. The above conclusions are helpful to understand the influencing mechanism of rural households’ conservation attitudes and improve the protection effects of nature reserves.

Highlights

The construction of nature reserves (NRs) is recognized as one of the most effective ways to protect rare wildlife species and natural ecosystems [1,2]
Data Sources conservation according to the theoretical analyses above; this study mainly examines the impact of social trust, especially interpersonal trust and institutional trust on rural households’ conservation attitudes in NRs in China
Three questions were asked to reflect rural households’ attitudes toward biodiversity conservation, including “Do you support for the establishment of NRs”, “Are you willing to participate in wildlife conservation”, “Is ecological protection more important than economic development in your village”

Summary

Introduction

The construction of nature reserves (NRs) is recognized as one of the most effective ways to protect rare wildlife species and natural ecosystems [1,2]. NRs in China have achieved great success in terms of biodiversity conservation, the effectiveness of NRs is primarily threatened by local development. There is widespread acceptance that conservation policy should, at least, do no harm and contribute to local livelihoods [5,6]. As the main stakeholders in biodiversity conservation, rural households’ attitudes towards ecological protection are considered the crucial factor in achieving the effectiveness of the NRs’ conservation target and the related conservation projects [7]. Relevant studies have demonstrated that rural households’ attitudes towards ecological conservation can be used to predict the households’ natural resources utilization intensity, the acceptance level of NRs’ conservation projects, and the responses to conservation measures [1,2,8]

Objectives

Methods

Results

Conclusion