China & the US: A Story of Two National Park Systems

A Story of Two Philosophies
While exploring the U.S. National Parks, one truly is able to feel and see the results of an organization that has been wildly successful in carrying forward the basic concepts of the system implemented over a century ago. The idea that nature is a part of America’s natural and cultural heritage, and that it should be preserved for the use and enjoyment of future generations while allowing that same use and enjoyment for the present generation, is truly a triumph of democracy and consensus. But while the past half of the 20th century saw the environmental movement spring forth across the world from the West, China is poised to have the biggest impact in the 100 years. As the Middle Kingdom’s influence abroad grows, so too does its responsibility to conservation. And domestically it is in the early stages of implementation for a shiny, new national park system of its own.
It is clear that the U.S. National Park system owes much of its success to the democratic society it was conceived in. The open and transparent access to the goals, budget, and operations of the National Park Service allows the public to question and influence outcomes at every step of the way. The system of public lands complements the parks themselves and allows wildlife to flourish via corridors and swaths of undeveloped land. A society which prides itself on individualism also creates an abundance of outdoor enthusiasts engaging with nature in the national parks in countless different ways, creating avenues of funding and self-fulfilling outdoor education.
On the other hand, the vast majority of thought, ideas, and activities in China are directed via sanctioning by the CCP. If you spend even a short amount of time in China, you start to sense walls set up in the society that locals may occasionally notice, but certainly don’t question. This type of governance is a double-edged sword: if leadership can be convinced to protect something, it will, without hesitation, move to protect it. We have seen this success with the recovery of the Giant Panda and a vast system of protected areas across the country. But it also presents other unique challenges for national parks in China and can be exacerbated by some lasting cultural vestiges. Here are some of those potential challenges.

Tourism
Tourism is different in China. The most obvious is that there are tons of people, creating logistical issues and the potential of overloading reserves, were they to be publicly open. Traveling is a status symbol in the most extreme sense, and often engagement with the environment is lost in favor of generating some sort of proof you saw a particular attraction. And tourism companies — though they may use environmentally friendly materials and processes — seem to incorporate the bare minimum in terms of encouraging learning and interaction with the environment.
Because of these issues, tourism in reserves and what are called “scenic areas” — areas open to tourism development often carved out of the original reserve boundaries — has developed in a way to manage them. Tourist buses whisk Chinese tourists back and forth between local attractions, as efficiently as possible. Staff tries to get people off all of the “trails” before closing at 5pm. All experiences from entering the park to sightseeing to eating to sleeping are apparently planned out and executed in almost identical ways for each group of tourists that come through.
As you can imagine, engagement and choice are very limited in this type of system. One of the stated goals of the U.S. National Parks is to create customized and unique experiences for every visitor to the park. One might come for the hiking. Another may be there for the hot springs. Yet another might be spotting wildlife. The ability to view nature as this unique, all-encompassing system that offers limitless possibilities is crucial to developing a healthy respect and voluntary attitude towards its conservation. As it currently stands, nature in China is something you go to enjoy the pre-rehearsed acts of tourism available. It turns the natural environment into a theme park, and — though not everyone would agree, as there are certainly some rabid Disney fans — nobody sees conserving Disneyland as their own, personal responsibility to something larger than themselves.
Furthermore, many of the “attractions” developed in these areas have limited relevance to the park itself. Cable cars, obstacle courses, ziplines, man-made ponds and lakes with tacky statues — these types of developments reek more of profit grabs and the desire to transform the areas into destinations instead of allowing what is already there to be the destination. Everything is prepared and laid out like a series of steps for tourists to come and “enjoy nature.” Instead of a new, ancient china-themed pond or a new, randomly-named stretch of river with statues and other gimmicks laid out along side it, why not invest in educational tours or projects focusing on the natural history of the region? Development for tourism is going to be unavoidable; its an increasingly important source of profit and people will want to visit. So ensure that development is sustainable and relevant.
Another key point related to tourism is the digitalization of all aspects of society. Recently there was some commotion generated regarding the “Instagramization” or the “Instagram Effect” that National Parks were experiencing. Mainly, this refers to the idea that many tourists are now flocking to scenic points or special areas in the parks for no other reason than to take a photo there and share it with their friends. This theoretical type of tourist does not engage with nature and does not particularly care about his or her impact on the environment, as long as they get their photo. And it does seem clear that the increase in tourism National Parks have been experiencing since the late-2000s coincides with the rise of the internet and social media.
In China, digitalization is even more prevalent than the West: your American mother may not be able to use her phone to do anything other than call you, but the Chinese grandma at the corner market watches funny videos all day and can troubleshoot your WeChat Pay account. This means that something similar to the “Instagram effect” can happen in China. But wait, there’s more. There may be no other culture on Earth which prides itself on going with the crowd, and imitating others is not a point of shame like it is in the West. That means when one influential person posts an interesting video on their timeline (in China this will be WeChat or Douyin or one of many other growing platforms), people start to follow them in droves. And those droves have more droves of friends that will follow once they see others are doing it. And a trend develops, fast. In terms of protected areas, it is 100% something that must be considered when promoting to tourists, and this makes the already tenuous trade-off in China between managing visitors and allowing for engagement even more difficult.
Of course, the internet and social media has a flip-side where it encourages togetherness, and allows people to see a new place, visit it, and hopefully spend the time to learn and engage with the environment. Our world still has not seen the full effect of the internet, but while we don’t know the final outcome, tourism in nature reserves has certainly changed because of it.

Public Relations
Public relations is one of the most important part of any enterprise — and that goes double, in many cases, for protected areas. The most important component of this is working with the local communities and those who will be directly impacted by the construction of a new protected area or the implementation of new projects.
One of the most evident differences in China in regards conserving natural resources is that there is very little in the way of true, virgin nature in China. The United States is spoiled in that it is still a relatively new country. A large chunk of land, particularly in the western part of the country, has yet to be developed. It’s not a coincidence that the largest and most famous National Parks are situated in this region, and the U.S. Public Lands system also contributes to the preservation of this wilderness. China does not have this luxury; mountains, prairies, plateaus — you name it, in China someone has probably been living there for hundreds of years.
This makes dealing with the local people a more unique challenge. North American protected areas may have to deal with local landowners, a corresponding government department, or a private company. Chinese protected areas have to deal with a rural generation that, likely, has not thought of nature beyond something they cultivate and utilize for economic benefit. The future national park system to be implemented in China will displace thousands of residents and to this point the government has not been clear on their planned methodology.
The good news is that NGOs, forestry officials, and academics are working together to create win-win economic solutions. This is one key area where I feel China’s own, in-country experience will be able to boost conservation efforts worldwide. It benefits from being simultaneously a modern superpower and a developing country. But while China is doing an exceptional job at transforming the country for the the people, the people are embroiled in a society which, especially in its modern form, has not traditionally respected the natural environment.
The very concept of protecting nature for use and enjoyment of both present and future generations is quite democratic, and implies a society that does not objectify its natural resources to achieve economic goals and is able to see the value in things simply as they are. Chinese society, in its current form, doesn’t appear to operate in this way. There is an ‘ideal’ in every situation — usually related to achieving the greatest possible outcome in the most efficient way possible — and every attempt that doesn’t reach the ideal is seen as a failure. Though people fundamentally recognize the value of nature, and certainly like to flaunt their ability to travel in it whenever possible, there isn’t really a solid place for the conservation of natural resources in recent Chinese lifestyle. It’s all about getting ahead, so why conserve a money-generating resource when you can exploit it for prestige and fortune?
Environmental education then also suffers, unless it is a component of a profitable career path. Chinese education crams knowledge into students heads — but only knowledge that can help them pass their college entrance exams. Nature itself is not seen as directly promoting the wellbeing and prosperity of the current or (foreseeable) future generations. Because of this, creating a system of education in which children are exposed to and develop a responsibility towards nature is difficult, and the lack of engagement is evident. China also has a shortage of graduates going into careers protected nature directly, creating a knowledge-deficit and pushing back the diffusion of conservation work into society.
This is why engagement as education is so important moving forward for China; it can promote knowledge and respect across multiple levels of society, help reorient local communities towards sustainable livelihoods, and encourage a curriculum of environmental education for youth.

Proper Governance
To ensure the proper management and operation of any enterprise, including protected areas, governance is of utmost importance. Without a clear system of goals and procedures, the likelihood of success in creating effective policies to govern protected areas is — ultimately — low. In China, the biggest obstacle to this is cooperation and competing interests among different government agencies.
While working for the Shenzhen City Government, one of the most baffling lessons I had to learn was that government departments and offices in China are not necessarily willing to just work together for the sake of a common goal. Promoting Shenzhen as an investment destination required not only our on the ground work, but also proper funding, support in Shenzhen, and easily accessible information. We were unable to gather a lot of this due to a lack of “guanxi,” or personal connections, between our leadership and the leadership in those offices — despite the fact that everyone would benefit from cooperation. As you can imagine, this slowed progress quite a bit. It stands in stark contrast to the U.S. government, in which departments are more often than not willing to work together jointly on projects for a common goal. They are all part of the U.S. government, after all.
The governance of protected areas has, at least until now, been similar in China. Responsibility for natural resources in these areas had been divided among different agencies with often competing interests. This is, again, in contrast to the U.S. National Park system, in which the NPS takes responsibility for the vast majority of the park resources and operations. This is necessary in the management of protected areas in order to meet the conservation and management goals of the reserve. China is attempting to address this in the implementation of their own national park system, in which funding and oversight will come directly from the central government. However, this system of “taking care of one’s own” and ignoring the rest, even those hoping to cooperate, is ingrained in Chinese professional culture. It will likely be difficult to parse control of the protected areas being incorporated into the national parks away from the provincial and local governments that currently control them.
Additionally, the lack of an environmental education curriculum has thus far failed to inspire enough smart, talented people to take up the mantle of conservation efforts in China. The common issue of “too little money” in conservation is exacerbated in economically-booming China, where this kind of talent would rather opt for a stable middle or upper-middle class lifestyle — and make their parents happy — by studying technology, engineering, or another more lucrative career. According to The Nature Conservancy China, there is a small crisis by which it is difficult to attract young people to do the necessary work to manage and instill new ideas into protected area development. Most of those that do enter are young women, who either leave to start a family or continue their study for a more lucrative career after a few years.
Notably, most of the forestry officials and conservation workers in China that are left are middle-aged, working-class men. While there is no doubt that they perform their job well, only those at the top are educated enough to direct and make decisions, and a lot of the lower-level workers do not care enough or are not qualified to effectively implement important protected area management work like surveillance, monitoring, planning, and more. Contrast this with those forestry and National Park Service staff in the U.S., which have college degrees and a demonstrated passion for the environment, and you can see why it is common for Chinese governance and management of protected areas to falter at the implementation level — even if the central government has set out clear goals and guidelines.
Conclusion
China is in a unique position whereby it is in the early stages of taking on more environmental responsibility around the world and simultaneously implementing a new, domestic national park system. While the basic idea and history of national parks is itself very democratic, the current system of government in China can, in reality, be even more efficient in identifying and implementing both learned best practices and new, innovative solutions to create the best system of protected areas in the world to date. Key to this is learning how to manage and develop tourism and engagement, creating better public relations and education curriculum, and solving governance and management inefficiencies.
