Abstract:

In recent years, the effectiveness of nature reserve management is being evaluated around the world. In 2005, the State Forestry Administration of P. R. China assessed the management effectiveness of 634 nature reserves (NRs) in China by sending questionnaires to reserve managers, of which 535 were effective. We used these questionnaires to evaluate the effectiveness of community management by calculating indices of participation, co-management, and coordination with local communities. We analyzed scores, regional characteristics, differences between national and local NRs, and factors that influenced scores of these indices. In general, the community management effectiveness in China was not as high as expected. Of the indices, the score of coordination with local communities was the highest, i.e. 1.85, followed by community participation and community co-management, i.e. 1.15 and 1.03 respectively. In addition, the effectiveness of community management in each region had no significant differences (P>0.05). However, the average score of the effectiveness of the NRs in Central China was the highest (i.e. 4.26), and that in South China was lowest (i.e. 3.73). The differences between the effectiveness scores of national and local NRs were statistically significant (P<0.01). On the whole, the national reserves were more effective than local ones. We found that monitoring and evaluation, personnel management, staff training, management plans, and patrolling were correlated with effectiveness of community management. On behalf of improving community management effectiveness, we recommend some accepted accessments such as establishing community co-management mechanisms, establishing ecological compensation mechanisms, allocating assessments fairly to the Central and provincal government budget, and enhancing the employers’ abilities.

Key words: nature reserves, community management, effectiveness evaluation, community participation, community co-management