Documentation:Open Case Studies/FRST522/2023/Wuyishan Biosphere in Fujian, China and Howe Sound Biosphere in British Columbia, Canada: a comparison of management of UNESCO Biospheres under different political systems.
Positionality
The author is self-identified as a woman, who took basic education (Grade 1- 12) in mainland China. She has lived in Fujian Province, China for three years and then moved to Vancouver afterward. The author received her higher education in both mainland China and Canada, but since she has never lived permanently in either case study region, most of the information comes from government reports, academic papers, and relevant news online. She does not identify herself as an Indigenous People to Canada or a member of any Minority Ethnic Groups in China.
Keywords
Biosphere Reserve; Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve; Howe Sound Biosphere reserve; management approaches; stakeholders.
Introduction
UNESCO Man and Biosphere Programme, which is well-known by another name Biosphere Reserves (BR), was launched by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) with the initial objective of environmental conservation in 1971[1] [2]; . BR is usually constituted with several components, which are: the core area, the buffer area and experimental area, including at least human societies and various natural ecosystems[3]. Therefore, understanding the interactions and impacts between different components within a BR is of great importance. Although not recognized at the beginning by the program, the focus of the program shifted from conservation only to sustainable development comprehensively in 1985[4], which include (1) natural resources conservation, especially maintaining biodiversity, (2) promote sustainable economic and human society development, (3) and combat climate change. Additionally, with the goal of “learning places for sustainability”, BR nowadays include (4) materials and study objects that provide a space for scientists, researchers, and students to explore sustainable management frameworks and models that are newly launched[5] [3]. It is the most common that the national government or federal government who nominate a domestic region to become BR initially. However, the reason for becoming a BR can be various as the shifts of goals of BR overall. There are in total 748 BR in 134 countries all over the world by 2022 [4], with various ecosystems, conditions and different management approaches under different political systems. Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve (WBR) and Howe Sound Biosphere Reserve (HSBR) are two BRs located in China and Canada respectively. With different biological conditions and under distinct political systems, the two BRs involve different stakeholders at different levels and apply different management approaches. Despite that, the different chronology of the two regions to become BRs has also been a factor leading to different management approaches.
Description
Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve:
o Geographic: The WBR is located in Fujian province and bordered with Jiangxi province, which covers an area of 565 km2. Ecologically, the WBR includes various terrestrial ecosystems, for example, forest ecosystems. Besides, WBR provides important habitat to various bamboo species, which provide bamboo timber, construction materials, as well as food to surrounding communities. The climate pattern at WBR is subtropical monsoon, of which the characteristic is humid all year round with lowest temperature in January (-1 °C) and highest temperature in July (26 °C)[6].
o Social: There are around 2500 people live in the WBR and more than 20000 people live in the surrounding communities that can be directly impacted by the management of WBR. These populations distributed in 3 main counties, which are Wuyi City, Jianyan City, and Guangzhe County. There are 16 villages distributed in this region, which is the lowest administrative unit in China[7].
o Economic: Tea industry plays an important role in the local economic development. In 2021, 7 out 16 villages all depended on tea cultivation or processing, making it the most profitable activity over the WBR.
o Historical timeline: Wuyishan became one of the first nature reserves in 1979 with the name Wuyishan National Natural Reserve. The initial task for this natural reserve was to deliver natural conservation work. In 1986, the reserve was accepted by the UNESCO MAB program and became a BR[6]. The national government nominated the area and submitted the application with the consideration of showcasing China's nature conservation efforts at an international level.
Howe Sound Biosphere Reserve:
o Geographic: The HSBR (49o 39.608’N – 123o 12.782’W) is located in the province of British Columbia, Canada, and covers an area of 218,723 ha [8]. Ecologically, the HSBR is composed of terrestrial land (183735 ha) and marine ecosystems (34,988 ha), that provide important habitats to grizzly bears, bald eagles, etc (UNESCO, 2021)[8]. Additionally, this region also has vital importance to salmon habitat restoration of the Pacific region (Átl’ḵa7tsem / Howe Sound Biosphere, 2023, July 17). Besides marine areas, the terrestrial ecosystems are important to the HSBR as well. The HSBR has rich forest resources, which provide not only natural resources, such as timber and NTFP, but also employment in the forest industry to local people. The climate pattern of HSBR is Mediterranean, which shown as dry and hot summer with cool and rainy winters.
o Social: The HSBR is composed of the municipalities of Bowen Island, Lions Bay, Squamish, Gibsons and West Vancouver, electoral areas E and F of the Sunshine Coast Regional District and Electoral Area D of the Squamish Lillooet Regional District, of which the population is around 78760 in 2011 with an estimate increase of 29.1% in 2036[9] (Lions Gate Consulting, 2016).
o Economic: The diverse ecosystems and resources with their fascinating beauties provide resources for development of two industries. The first one is tourism and the second one is forest industry with logging, wood processing and other related activities. These two industries nowadays play an important role in the sustainable development of the region.
(HSBRIS, 2020)
o Historical timeline: Millions of years ago, the Howe Sound region was covered by glacier and volcanos. With plate movements and anthropocentric activities, the landform of the Howe Sound region nowadays includes Snow-capped mountains, cliffs, rivers, oceans, peninsulas, etc. and makes Howe Sound one of the most attractive places for outdoor lovers [10]. Although there is no clear evidence of the exact date, the Howe Sound region became an entirety which all districts and municipalities contribute to the plan of the region collectively before it became a BR. By 2016, the local communities hold very strong objections to the mills and other operations that are still in working, feeling the pollution has destroyed the beauty of Howe Sound. Later in 2016, they started to prepare for submitting the application to become an BR in order to get external resources and supports for sustainable development of the region. With the approvement of B.C. provincial government and the official nomination of the Canadian Government, Howe Sound became a BR in 2021[11]. It is the latest BR in Canada.
Political system and tenure arrangements of study objects
Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve:
o Political system: China is a one-party socialist republic, governed by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), with the President as the head of state and the Premier as the head of government (CITATION).
o Tenure system: There are several land tenure reforms of China in history. Nowadays, land is divided into two types, which are state owned and collectively owned (CITATION). Most urban land are state owned, which means the government is responsible for land planning and management. Collectively owned land is mostly rural land, where the land provides primary resources to surrounding communities (CITATION). However, WBR is a 100% state owned nature reserve, government and some other authorities are in charge of land planning and management [6]. 10% of land are used for commercial activities, such as tea production and bamboo plantation, and the 90% of land in WBR is strictly used for nature preservation[12]. Recently, WBR is applying a new model for bamboo forest management. From May 2022, the land ownership remained the same, but management and harvest rights of bamboo forest was transferred from the collective to government, village by village. In exchange, village as a collective receive compensate with the rate of 1770 yuan (?) per ha[13].
Howe Sound Biosphere Reserve:
o Political system: the Canadian Government is a constitutional monarchy and a parliamentary democracy, which include federal government, provincial governments, and municipal government. Canada’s Parliament consists of three parts: the governor general, who represents the King, the Senate, and the House of Commons[14].
o Tenure system: There are several land tenure systems in Canada. One is Crown land, which is owned by the federal (41%) or provincial government (49%), which consist of 89 % of total Land in Canada. For Crown land, the government that owns it is responsible for planning the utilization and development of the land with all the resources. Groups or individuals may get certain rights over Crown land with specific license. For example, a tree farm license (TFL) allows the license holder to acquire some rights to appointed land [15]. Another land type is private land, which are directly owned by individual and stand for only 11% of the total land in Canada. Private landowners have the rights to plan for any activities that will happen over the land they own or even sell and lease their land. The HSBR located in the B.C. province, of which the Crown land stands for 90%, private land only stand for 9% of the total land. On December 22, 2022, a community forest license was issued by the B.C. government to the Squamish First Nation in HSBR (Squamish, 2023, April 27). This license allows the license holder to acquire some exclusive rights to appointed land, which include logging under the Annual Allowable Cut (AAC) that is enacted by the provincial government at a yearly regulation [15].
Main Commercial activities of the study objects
Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve:
o Tea industry: Tea industry is the most important profitable industry at WBR to tea farmers, even compared to the tourism industry. The surrounding population has been growing tea for centuries. Most of the tea produced in the WBR area belongs to the oolong tea category[16], with common varieties such as Wuyi Mountain Rock Tea and Dahongpao (大红袍), which are also some of the most expensive varieties of tea available on the Chinese market. Unlike the traditional timber industry, the production and processing of tea usually requires the cooperation of several people, which makes the labor force in a household largely profitable. In a place of 430 residents within WBR, called Tongmu Village, every family is engaged in tea-related work. In 2022, Tongmu Village had a per capita income of 20,810 RMB, with an average household income of 200,000 RMB (Wang, 2023). However, these incomes pale in comparison to companies that produce tea on a large industrial scale. A tea called Jinjunmei [12](金骏眉), that is produced in the same village, has much higher economic value, which can be sold at 3.65 US dollar per gram. Jinjunmei is not a name of tea tree species but refers to a particular processing method. This method requires expensive machines and has lower production rate, which make single households unable to afford. Besides, the founder of the tea has used the title of UNESCO BR to brand the product, makes it more famous and popular at international market.
Howe Sound Biosphere Reserve:
o Tourism: Tourism with the service industry that include restaurant, hotels, parks, etc. is one of the leading industries at HSBR. There are many facilities and amenities supporting recreation and tourism, including 30 recreation sites, 53 recreation trails and 14 provincial parks and reserves. Outdoor activities such as boating, sailing, skiing, hiking, biking etc. are attracting lots of tourists each year. In 2006, tourism contributed 27 percent of the local income [9].
o Forestry: As located in B.C. province, the forestry industry was once the most significant industry that provide the most income in the 20th century by logging and wood processing [9]. However, due to the opposition of local communities, mills are closed [11]. Additionally, with the regulatory of logging by government, the forests that are eligible for logging also declined. In 2016, forestry contributes 5% and 14% to the local income of Squamish and Sunshine Coast respectively.
Related Stakeholders
Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve:
o Governments at all levels: national government is responsible for drafting various management and development plans. State Forestry and Grassland Administration (SFGA) is the government agency that responsible for the fulfillment of the National Government Plan at a national level. Sub-SFGA at national level is responsible for fulfill the plan at a local level [17].
o Intermediate NGO: UNESCO work with the Chinese Academy of Science for research on the development of WBR.
o Local communities: Communities that live within WBR and surrounding areas who are directly influenced by the park management. Monitoring in the field is delivered by local community members. There are employed by the provincial government. Their annual income is around 20000-30000 US dollars, which is similar to small-scale tea farmers, but relatively low compared to the profits made by the tea company.
o Tourists
Howe Sound Biosphere Reserve:
o Governments at all levels, which include federal government and provincial government. In some areas over HSBR, there are municipal governments.
o Intermediate NGO: UNESCO hire people locally or send stuff to HSBR to support the management. [Gladys, what exactly do you mean?]
o Representative NGO: The Howe Sound Biosphere Initiative Society (HSBIS) is a local representative NGO that ensure the balance between development, conservation, and equity.
o Local communities
o Tourists
Major conflicts or challenges
Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve:
Conflict between strict nature reserve management and the desire of expand tea plantation of local communities. Tea products, as mentioned, is the most important income source for local communities at MBR. Many of them have opposite opinions on the strict regulations of nature reserve at first [18], however, most of them gradually realize the importance of healthy ecosystems. According to personal communication with a local community member (2023), although tea farmers themselves think they are making good amount of money, retailers and middleman are benefiting more from local tea industry compared to local communities.
Howe Sound Biosphere Reserve
Land tenure conflicts with Indigenous Communities: Ahead of the appearance of settlers in 1791 in this region, the First Nation Communities has been living on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands for centuries. The arrival of settlers’ government has greatly altered the situation and took the land away from Indigenous Communities. Since then, land sovereignty has been a wicked problems that remains unsolved [19].
Compare and contrast of the two study objects
Management approach: The management approaches of the two BRs are distinctive. WBR applied top-down management approach, which is shown by the model that state government makes most draft plans and regional govern bodies take actions under the guidance of the overall draft plan. The pro of the model is high-efficient, which can be told by the overall achievements of grain to green program and other afforestation program in China. [Explain why you reference these programmes here.] The con is low-transparent. Many detailed information of the WBR is not open to public, or the website automatically block foreign visitors. In contrast, HSBR applied top-down and bottom-up mixed approach. The pro of the model is very transparent and high-motivated for public involvement. On the other hand, this model is low-efficient.
Stakeholder involvement: HSBR did better job on this, which successfully involved local communities, and even biking club in conservation work. Local communities have their voices heard through the HSBIS. WBR did not meet this goal very well. The top-down management approach has less motivation for local involvement, which might be even worse after the transfer of land tenure.
Level of Achieving BR goals: The two BRs more or less achieved the BR goals. However, from an international level, UNESCO the organization itself did not provide any criteria and indicators for assessing the condition of BRs. Therefore, it is hard to talk about how well or bad are the two BRs doing.
Recommendations
Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve:
o The first point of advice to WBR is to increase the involvement of the local community. The one-party, top-down system of government has had undeniable success in China, with many notable achievements in infrastructure development, national technological capacity building, etc. since the founding of the People's Republic of China in 1949. However, this model has not been successful in promoting local community participation. Therefore, the government must come up with solutions to encourage local communities to participate in land and resource management. The Joint Forest Management [20] (JFM) in India is an example. The local communities lack rights and power over the land, and they lost interest in management. Without the cooperation of local communities, the government lacks ground support in the field to monitor the changes of forests, which at last lead to a lose-lose situation.
o The second recommendation is the establishment of a transparent and credible monitoring system. Recently, some land rights including ownership have been transferred from the collective to the State, with villagers benefiting from a change from direct management to annual financial compensation. From the State's point of view, the Government believes that this allows for more efficient management of land and resources. However, based on past experience with community forests, this is not necessarily a guaranteed success. Amabomvini community in South Africa applied similar model, which is the Sale and Lease Back model. There are many problems with this model, one of which is lack of transparency [21]. Therefore, Chinese government should learn from the lesson and build monitoring system for transparency to ensure the compensate and forest managements are enacted.
o The last recommendation is to provide appropriate assistance for community capacity building. The tea industry in the WBR is the mainstay of the region. However, there is a big gap between the tea produced by the company and the profits made by the local community. The main reason for this is that ordinary villagers can hardly afford to spend money on the machines used to produce Jinjunmei and other processes of production. Additionally, local communities lack knowledge of branding for their products, which makes them unable to gain a share of the international tea market. Therefore, government should provide
training and education to owners of plantations, which can help them to branding and thus increase net profit more effectively. Government could think about the lesson given by the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala. Various NGOs are invited to join the development of the Xate value chain. Institutions such as the University Lab, Rainforest Alliance all substantially contribute to the success of that value chain. The local communities also gained knowledge for future development [22]. Therefore, Chinese government should think about involve more NGOs in the field to provide training and help that could contribute to the capacity building of local communities.
Howe Sound Biosphere Reserve:
o Argument on land sovereignty and land rights between Indigenous People and the settler government have been a huge challenge in Canada (Smith & Bulkan, 2021). Although there are development and certain rights transfer to the Indigenous Communities. However, challenges still exist. The TFL only guarantee the license holders exclusive timber harvest rights, which also need to follow the Annual Allowable Cut. Other rights such as exclude other people from entering the forests is not valid for license holder. Additionally, even with TFL, there is a lack of appearance of First Nations in the decision-making process. For small-scale communities, it is also hard for them to find the balance between economic development and natural conservation [19]. Therefore, recommendation to HSBR, especially for related governing bodies, is to ensure the TFL is beneficial to the communities that hold the license.
Integrated recommendations:
o As UNESCO BR, WBR and HSBR are subject to similar regulatory controls at the international level, and both follow UNESCO BR regulation. At the same time, both of them, as social-ecological systems that exist on the planet, face some of the same challenges, such as climate change. Therefore, there should be some multinational framework or platform that each country could share some lessons and experiences for managing the land.
o One of the goals of UNESCO BR is to provide space for scientists and researchers to explore different possibilities of sustainable development. However, neither of WBR or HSBR show strong connections with academic institutions. HSBR holds regular meetings with students from the University British Columbia, which is not usual for WBR. Therefore, to achieve BR goal, as well as to get extra external support, both WBR and HSBR should build connections with local and international academic institutions.
Conclusion
WBR and HSBR are two UNESCO BRs. They are managed under different political systems with different management approaches and goals site-specifically. Both of them have their own pros and cons for the management. In the future, they should pay attention to working with academic institutions and share management experiences with each other to improve on their own.
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References
- ↑ Coetzer, Witkowski, and Erasmus, Kaera L., Edward T. F. , and Barend F. N. (2013). "Reviewing Biosphere Reserves globally: effective conservation action or bureaucratic label?". https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/brv.12044?saml_referrer. 89: pp82-104 – via BIOLOGICAL REVIEWS. External link in
|journal=(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) CS1 maint: extra text (link) - ↑ Donevska, Wang, Natasha, Dongping (2018). "University Alliance for Sustainability Unit for Sustainability and Energy Management Freie Universität Berlin". https://refubium.fu-berlin.de/bitstream/handle/fub188/22006/Working_Paper_01_2018-3.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y. External link in
|journal=(help) - ↑ 3.0 3.1 UNESCO (2022). Technical guidelines for biosphere reserves. https://static1.squarespace.com/static/58c0c358ebbd1a9d3cd1ecf0/t/64e4e97aacc8b841363eb612/1692723584427/Technical+Guidelines.pdf. France.
- ↑ 4.0 4.1 D'Souza, Gillian (2023, November 3). "Biosphere Reserves: What are they and why must we care for them?". EGU Blogs. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - ↑ Ferreira, Zimmermann, Santos, Von Wehrden, Ana Filipa, Heike, Rui, Henrik (2020). "Biosphere Reserves' Management Effectiveness—A Systematic Literature Review and a Research Agenda". https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/12/14/5497. 12 – via Sustainability. External link in
|journal=(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ 6.0 6.1 6.2 UNESCO Beijing Office (2010). Wuyishan Biosphere Reserve Learning Site for Sustainable Development under World Network of Biosphere Reserves - Demonstration of Joint Protection, Coordinated Development, Building a Harmonious and Civilized Ecological Zone.
- ↑ Chen, Sun, Su, Shuiguang, Xiaoxia, Shipping (2021). "A Study of the Mechanism of Community Participation in Resilient Governance of National Parks: With Wuyishan National Park as a Case". https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/13/18/10090. 13 – via Sustainability. External link in
|journal=(help)CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link) - ↑ 8.0 8.1 UNESCO (2021). "Átl'ka7tsem/Howe Sound Biosphere Reserve, Canada".
- ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 Lions Gate Consulting (2016). Socio-Economic Baseline of the Howe Sound Area. https://davidsuzuki.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/socio-economic-baseline-howe-sound-area-2016.pdf. External link in
|publisher=(help) - ↑ Canadian Coastal Sailing. "A JOURNEY THROUGH ÁTL'KA7TSEM HOWE SOUND".
- ↑ 11.0 11.1 Pynn, Larry (2018, July 21). "Industry and conservationists square off over B.C.'s Howe Sound". Vancouver Sun. Check date values in:
|date=(help) - ↑ 12.0 12.1 Debernardi, Ma, Jane, Junhong (2022). "History, creativity, and value: The modern making of Gold Jun Mei tea". Asian Journal of Social Science. 50 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
- ↑ China Reform Daily (2022). "武夷山国家公园——人与自然和谐共生的典范". Archived from the original on
|archive-url=requires|archive-date=(help). - ↑ Government of Canada (2023). "Democracy in Canada". Archived from the original on
|archive-url=requires|archive-date=(help). - ↑ 15.0 15.1 Gunter, Jennifer (2022). "Community Forestry in British Columbia, Canada". In Bulkan, Palmer, Larson, Hobley, Janette, John, Anne M., Mary (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Community Forestry. New York: Routledge. pp. 319–337.CS1 maint: multiple names: editors list (link)
- ↑ Chen, Sun, Su, Shuiguang, Xiaoxia, Shipping (2021). "A Study of the Mechanism of Community Participation in Resilient Governance of National Parks: With Wuyishan National Park as a Case". Sustainability. 13 – via MDPI.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
- ↑ FAO (2021). The unfolding forest transition in China and lessons for the future. Bangkok.
- ↑ He, Su, Siyuan, Yang (2022). "Understanding Residents' Perceptions of the Ecosystem to Improve Park–People Relationships in Wuyishan National Park, China". Sustainability. 11 – via MDPI.
- ↑ 19.0 19.1 Smith, Bulkan, Tanya, Janette (2021). "A 'New Relationship'? reflections on British Columbia's 2003 Forest Revitalization Plan from the perspective of the Li̓l̓wat First Nation". Land use policy. 105 – via Elsevier Science Direct.
- ↑ Bulkan, Palmer, Larson, Hobley, Janette, John, Anne M., Mary (2022). "Exercising stewardship rights and responsibilities in van panchayat community forests, Johar Valley, Uttarakhand, India". Routledge Handbook of Community Forestry. New York: Routledge.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
- ↑ Tshidzumba, Clarke, Chirwa, Ratsodo Phillip, Jeanette, Paxie W. (2022). "Commercial timber plantations as means to land and economic restitution in South Africa". In Bulkan, Palmer, Larson, Hobley, Janette, John, Anne M., Mary (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Community Forestry. New York: Routledge.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)
- ↑ Butler, Wilsey, Current, Carrera, Newsom, Megan, David, Dean, José Román, Deanna (2022). "Non-timber forest product value chain development: Lessons from a university's 20-year partnership in the Maya Biosphere Reserve". In Bulkan, Palmer, Larson, Hobley, Janette, John, Anne M., Mary (ed.). Routledge Handbook of Community Forestry. New York: Routledge.CS1 maint: multiple names: authors list (link)