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. 2021 Jan 17;50(5):1117–1122. doi: 10.1007/s13280-020-01448-z

Balancing ecological conservation with socioeconomic development

Shixiong Cao 1,✉, Zhexi Liu 2, Weiming Li 1, Junli Xian 1
PMCID: PMC8035341  PMID: 33454911

Abstract

Ecological restoration and conservation are primary components of sustainable development around the world, particularly during the contemporary era of climate change. However, restoration and conservation are not free; they consume huge amounts of resources that would otherwise support social and economic development. Therefore, excessive conservation creates a risk of creating rather than eliminating poverty. Unfortunately, scientists have largely ignored the balance between these contrasting goals. Here, we discuss the concept of finding the threshold that represents a suitable balance between ecological conservation and economic development, thereby maximizing the benefits for both humans and the environment and promoting sustainable development. To demonstrate the concept, we examined China’s ecological restoration achievements and discussed some of the unforeseen negative consequences that accompanied these achievements to discuss how future policies could better balance ecological and socioeconomic goals.

Keywords: Conservation threshold, Conservation trap, Degradation trap, Ecosystem degradation, Environmental conservation

Introduction

Ecosystem degradation is one of the most challenging problems humanity faces. Both researchers and people around the world recognize the need to protect the environment and achieve sustainable development during the twenty-first century (Tallis et al. 2008; Griggs et al. 2013; Bastan et al. 2017; Criollo et al. 2019). To encourage protection of China’s ecological environment, president Xi Jinping proposed the slogan that “green hills and clean rivers are more valuable than gold and silver.” Therefore, China, which has experienced historically unprecedented economic development, has joined this initiative to protect the world’s environment (Lu et al. 2018).

Since 1999, China’s government has successively launched the largest and most ambitious environmental protection programs in the world, which aimed to prevent soil erosion and the development of dust storms. These include the Natural Forest Conservation Program, for which state has invested up to 296 × 109 RMB (the currency of the People’s Republic of China, 1 RMB = 0.13 € in December 2020) to create 13 × 106 ha of natural forest; the Grain for Green program, for which state has invested 350 × 109 RMB to provide ecological restoration through afforestation in more than 29 × 106 ha; and the Three-North Shelter Forest Program, which has planted 38 × 106 ha of trees (State Forestry Administration 2018). Some of these programs have produced large beneficial results. For example, the green field conservation and the orchard growth in Three-North Shelter Forest Program have (separately) generated 447 × 109 and 236 × 109 RMB per year in net benefits (Cao et al. 2020a, b; Ma et al. 2020).

However, like most large-scale policies, China’s ecological restoration programs have had some unintended negative consequences that have not been widely discussed, such as exacerbation of poverty in some program areas and excessive water consumption by the vegetation in other areas (Cao et al. 2010, 2011; Lu et al. 2018). China’s people have made considerable sacrifices to achieve these ecological improvements, and in the present paper, we will focus on those consequences rather than on the well-described benefits of the programs. One problem is that the country’s investments in ecological conservation may have gone too far in some cases, leading to a new problem: consumption of funds that could have been used to sustain social and economic development (Cao et al. 2010). Clearly, balancing investments in ecological conservation with investments in social and economic development is a difficult scientific challenge. There must be a limit to investments in conservation, which may exist near the point where conservation begins to affect the quality of life of a nation’s poorest citizens.

However, there has been little research to identify the point at which ecological conservation becomes excessive, which has led to serious and potentially unacceptable consequences for social and economic development in China (Cao et al. 2011; Lu et al. 2018). In the present study, we attempted to provide some of the missing knowledge by examining how conservation efforts can undermine or conflict with efforts to achieve a balance between human needs and nature (i.e., sustainable development). To do so, we chose China as a case study and reviewed historical data on ecological conservation to illustrate the achievements and the social and economic risks of the abovementioned programs. Our goal was to discuss whether there is a threshold beyond which investments in ecological conservation can begin to produce negative consequences for the people affected by the programs. Achieving a better balance between conservation and development, thereby permitting a win–win solution, represents a new area of research on ecological restoration.

Achievements and risks of conservation in China

China’s hard work has paid off. Statistics show that China’s forest cover increased from 15.6% in 2003 to 23.0% in 2018 (State Forestry Administration 2003–2018), and satellite monitoring by NASA confirms this outcome (Chen et al. 2019). Cost–benefit analyses (Cao et al. 2020a, b; Ma et al. 2020) have shown that China’s primary conservation programs have generally been highly effective. After subtracting all costs for which reliable and comparable statistics were available (including land and water opportunity costs, implementation costs, management expenses, and costs to mitigate the risk of insects, diseases, and fires), the Natural Forest Conservation, Grain for Green, and Three-North Shelter Forest programs produced annual net benefits of 2933 × 109, 530 × 109, and 462 × 109 RMB, respectively, which represent rates of return equal to 329, 55, and 29% compared with the costs of these investments (Cao et al. 2020a, b; Ma et al. 2020). However, analyses of these projects revealed positive net benefits for all restoration activities except afforestation conducted under the Three-North Shelter Forest program in arid and semi-arid parts of northern China, where the benefits were negative because of the excessively high water consumption by these trees (Table 1). In addition, the magnitude of the net benefits varied widely between China’s different regions, which suggests that local factors strongly affect the outcomes of an ecological restoration program.

Table 1.

The results of the four main restoration approaches in Three-North Shelter Forest program in China

Benefits
(× 109 RMB year−1)		 Costs
(× 109 RMB year−1)		 Net benefit
(benefits minus costs; × 109 RMB year−1)		 Return on investment (net benefit/cost, %)
Afforestation by planting 752.72 983.48 − 230.76 − 23.46
Fruit tree plantations 608.25 372.73 235.52 63.19
Aerial seeding afforestation 39.91 30.43 9.48 31.15
Conservation of natural forest 634.10 186.66 447.44 239.71
Total 2034.98 1573.30 461.68 29.34
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Afforestation is a popular method for ecological restoration around the world. The total area of afforestation in China amounted to 32.5% of the woodland area and accounted for 48.1% of the total forest area from 1998 to 2018 (State Forestry Administration 1999–2018). Although trees provide many natural and economic benefits, they also consume large amounts of water and soil nutrients, and potentially consume more of these resources than other plants, such as the grassland vegetation that is common in many areas of semi-arid and arid China (Wang et al. 2010; Cao et al. 2011; Lu et al. 2018). As a result, afforestation adversely affects the growth and development of plants and soil microorganisms; it can reduce the diversity and growth of plants and soil microbes across a range of environmental conditions (Wang et al. 2010; Cao et al. 2011; Song et al. 2016; Lu et al. 2018).

Because of the large benefits provided by conservation of natural forest (Table 1), construction of nature reserves is becoming a popular conservation approach both in China and around the world (Jin 1997; Glazer 2001). Despite the high pressure on land caused by the need to produce food and feed its citizens, China’s government has strongly promoted the allocation of scarce land for construction of nature reserves. By the end of 2018, 143 × 106 ha had been listed as a natural protection zone, accounting for 14.9% of China’s total land area, which exceeds the international average level of 14.0%. China has actively promoted the construction of national parks, and 4% of China’s total land area is now protected against development in these parks (State Forestry Administration 2018).

However, during the implementation of this program, China’s government didn’t perform a sufficiently detailed cost–benefit analysis to quantify the impact on residents of the areas affected by these programs, in part because the conventional analytical approach neglected this impact (Cao et al. 2020b; Ma et al. 2020). Since the afforestation by planting produced a loss of 983 × 109 RMB per year (Table 1), the impact of this program on citizens was negative (Naidoo and Adamowicz 2006; Naidoo and Ricketts 2006; Cao et al. 2020a). From 2006 to 2016, 8 × 106 people have been forced to emigrate from the areas occupied by the newly established reserves (National Development and Reform Commission 2007–2017). Although the government provided inexpensive new homes for the displaced citizens, they did not provide a replacement for how these people formerly earned their living. Displacement followed by unemployment resulted from a lack of education or training for many of these people, which made it impossible for them to find new jobs, and this has had severe negative impacts on their lives (Cao et al. 2020a, b).

China’s government has also prohibited deforestation to prevent harvesting of trees for lumber and fuel. Natural forest protection and Green for Green program has covered 42 × 106 ha (State Forestry Administration 2018). However, this also prevented harvesting of dead or dying trees. Moreover, both the dead trees and dense forest stands that are not managed by thinning may increase the risk of forest fires (Stephens et al. 2018). Due to a lack of domestic timber, China was forced to import an estimated 28 × 106 m3 of log annually in 2009, and this increased to 60 × 106 m3 in 2018 (State Forestry Administration 2009–2018). This has shifted the burden of forest harvesting, and the associated environmental pressure, from China onto the exporting countries, leading to criticism about how China is exporting its ecological impacts and damaging its international reputation (Su et al. 2009; Laurance 2012).

Theoretical perspective

The price of resources such as land increases as their supply decreases. Therefore, when land is conserved (protected against resource exploitation), the conservation reduces the supply of land and increases its price, thereby making land less affordable, particularly for the residents of areas affected by conservation programs (Cao et al. 2010). The competition between socioeconomic development and the need to perform ecological conservation can therefore have strong negative consequences, both for a country and for the residents of program areas, who are often among the poorest citizens and who may lose their livelihood, thereby exacerbating their poverty. Therefore, there is likely to be a threshold at which investments in ecological restoration or conservation begin to have negative effects on socioeconomic development. Figure 1 presents a theoretical framework for considering this problem. Note that because the cost and benefit details will vary among situations and may change over time, we have illustrated the threshold in abstract terms. A challenge for future research will be to find ways to quantitatively identify the values of ecological and socioeconomic indices that define the position of the threshold.

Fig. 1.

Fig. 1

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A visual illustration of the relationship between socioeconomic development and environmental restoration or conservation, which can be used to predict the threshold for balanced development. When excessive damage to the ecosystem occurs or excessive protection is provided, socioeconomic development is greatly reduced. The two indexes in this figure are abstract and the choice of index can vary, depending on the goals of a study and the available data, but they must represent quantifiable variables such as vegetation cover or the value of ecosystem services for the ecological index and per capita economic benefits for the socioeconomic index. In the region between points A and B, there is a threshold between ecosystem protection and socioeconomic development, with an acceptable combination of both goals occurring at the top of the inverted-U curve

Achieving a suitable balance between ecological and socioeconomic needs is complicated by the existence of thresholds, which can be difficult to detect. To illustrate how ecological conservation beyond such a threshold might have negative impacts on both ecological and socioeconomic development, we will use the example of water consumption. Because the trees selected in the three ecological restoration programs described in previous sections were selected primarily for fast growth, and not for efficient water consumption, they consume excessive water in China’s semi-arid and arid regions (Cao et al. 2011). As a result, they decrease water availability for domestic use and for other vegetation, and because tree mortality is high in regions where precipitation is insufficient to sustain the trees, the dead trees have created an unanticipated risk of an increased frequency or severity of forest fires (Su et al. 2009; Laurance 2012). Therefore, researchers must pay more attention to identifying such undesirable consequences to avoid situations in which they must “rob Peter to pay Paul.”

Another example involves the total ban on grazing that has been implemented in many areas to allow grassland vegetation time to recover through natural processes. This approach may not be effective in some parts of China, where grazing is necessary to sustain the grassland vegetation (Wang et al. 2018; Dong et al. 2020). Grasslands are dominated by herbaceous vegetation that dies at the end of the growing season. If the dead biomass is not removed by herbivores, it may interfere with regrowth of the vegetation in the following spring (Xin 2008). If grazing is completely prohibited, wild herbivores may be unable to remove enough of the dead aboveground parts of the vegetation to promote regrowth the following year. The dead vegetation blocks sunlight, thereby slowing warming of the soil and reducing the energy available to support photosynthesis of new growth (Xin 2008; Dong et al. 2020). Ultimately, excessive protection that completely eliminates natural ecosystem processes such as grazing may lead to deterioration of the grassland (Wang et al. 2018).

Environmental degradation is a major cause of the “poverty trap,” in which poverty in an ecologically fragile area exacerbates ecosystem degradation, thereby reducing the ecosystem’s ability to sustain human life (Kates and Dasgupta 2007; Mabogunje 2007; Sietz et al. 2011). In this context, excessive efforts to protect the environment can eliminate the ability of residents of program areas to earn a living, whereas insufficient protection of the environment can lead to environmental degradation that strengthens the poverty trap (Fig. 2). Governments must understand that although environmental protection is a laudable goal for its own sake, it cannot be the only goal. When environmental conservation adversely affects people’s lives, the right of humans to earn a living must also be protected (Cao et al. 2010). For environmental protection to be sustainable, it must balance restoration of natural ecosystems with the need to provide a livelihood to residents of project areas, thereby achieving a win–win situation in which both environmental degradation and poverty can be alleviated. Only in this way will it be possible to sustainably achieve environmental conservation without harming a country’s poorest citizens.

Fig. 2.

Fig. 2

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There are three possible conditions for resource exploitation: overutilization, underutilization, and balanced utilization. Each condition leads to different consequences. Overutilization and underutilization of natural resources lead to an imbalance between nature and humans, leading to different forms of the poverty trap: the degradation trap and the conservation trap, respectively. Only balanced utilization of natural resources can achieve sustainable development that meets the needs of both the environment and humans

When a country faces an ecological crisis due to ecosystem degradation, the managers responsible for solving that problem must resist the temptation to adopt simplistic, extreme, and inflexible policies. Managers should account for the unique ecological and socioeconomic constraints faced by residents of a program region, including the complexity of ecosystem responses to management, and should maintain a balance between the needs of the environment and social development (Nelson et al. 2009; Cao et al. 2020a, b). China’s practical experience with ecological conservation suggests that it is not wise to implement unlimited environmental protection, despite the huge ecological benefits this provides, because doing so has important environmental and human costs. Scientists should work together with other experts to both clarify the mechanisms and work out a feasible balance between environmental protection and socioeconomic development. Details will vary among the world’s different regions because of differences in local resources and constraints on their use. This will help both China and other countries around the world achieve the win–win goal of combining socioeconomic development with ecological sustainability. Because China is a developing country, the factors that affect the positions of the threshold shown in Fig. 1 will differ from the positions for a developed country. In future research, it will therefore be necessary to determine whether our theoretical framework must be modified to account for different levels of socioeconomic development.

Acknowledgements

This research was funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41641002). We thank Geoffrey Hart of Montréal, Canada, for his help in writing this manuscript. We are also grateful for the comments and criticisms of an earlier version of this manuscript by our colleagues and by the journal’s reviewers.

Biographies

Shixiong Cao

is the corresponding author. He is a professor at Minzu University of China. His interests include ecological economics, institutional economics, and politics.

Zhexi Liu

is a student at University of Science and Technology Beijing. Her interests include Environmental economics and policy.

Weiming Li

is a student at Minzu University of China. His interests include ecological economics, institutional economics, and politics.

Junli Xian

is a student at Minzu University of China. His interests include ecological economics, institutional economics, and politics.

Author contributions

SC designed the research. ZL, WL, and JX performed the data analysis. ZL and SC wrote the manuscript. All authors have approved the manuscript for publication.

Funding

This research was funded by the Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant No. 41641002).

Conflicts of interest

The authors declare that they no conflicts of interest.

Footnotes

Publisher's Note

Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Contributor Information

Shixiong Cao, Email: shixiongcao@126.com.

Zhexi Liu, Email: zhexiliu@163.com.

Weiming Li, Email: mucliweiming@163.com.

Junli Xian, Email: xianjunli3228@163.com.

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