Tourist behavior and conservation awareness on eating wild edible plants in mountainous protected areas: a case study in Northwest China

ABSTRACT

Protected areas in tourist hot spots are under increasing pressure from growing commercial tourism and wild plants utilization. However, few studies of tourists’ behaviors and attitudes towards eating wild edible plants in protected areas have been conducted. This study presents the results of an investigation conducted on 202 tourists and 334 households in the Qinling Mountains in China to examine relationships between harvest/eating wild edible plants and the tourism experience. According to the results, there is a high demand for wild edible plants by tourists and local people because of traditions and the desire for green food. Tourists with a higher level of education, maturity, or environmental awareness eat wild edible plants to a lesser extent. However, higher income may encourage greater utilization of wildland resources. Analytical results indicate significant inconsistency between tourists’ perceptions of wildland resource conservation and their actual behavior. Besides, the respondents perceive a low level of environmental responsibility in spite of their stated environmental awareness. This study highlights the need to fulfill ecological responsibility when tourism occurs in protected areas to achieve species conservation and sustainability.

KEYWORDS:

• Wild edible plants
• species conservation
• tourism
• mountainous protected area

Acknowledgments

This work was supported by Natural Science Foundation of China (71373024) and Natural Science Foundation Breeding Project of School of Economics and Management in Beijing Forestry University (JGZKPY002). Thanks go to Feng Han, Wei Duan, Fei Sai, Xiangrong Guo, and Jinglu Pan for their assistance in data collection from the questionnaires. Special thanks to Chongde Hu for supplying us with data on size and tourists from the study area and for information collection assistance. Finally, appreciation is given to the anonymous reviewers of Journal of Sustainable Forestry.