1569 / 2024-10-01 06:53:37

Conservation Effectiveness of Chinese Marine Protected Areas in the Western Pacific Ocean and Conservation Values of Candidate Areas for the Nanbeiji Islands National Parks

Marine Protected Areas,Species Diversity,Climate Change,Human Activities,Conservation Values,Protected Area Management,Nanbeiji Islands

China established the first batch of national parks in 2021, which is still in the early stage of system construction, and has not yet incorporated environmental factors such as climate change into the planning system. There is a lack of feasible methodology and relevant research on assessing the conservation value of marine-type national parks. For this reason, this paper takes the Chinese sea area on the west coast of the Pacific Ocean as the study area, tries to analyze its conservation priority areas in combination with the 27 established national marine protected areas, and establishes a suitable value assessment method for the Nanbeiji Islands area, which has become a candidate area for a national park in this sea area. Based on the species distribution model, we predicted the suitable habitats of some threatened species and analyzed the data of the sea area using remote sensing images. Using hierarchical analysis and fuzzy evaluation method, a four-level hierarchical structure model was proposed to assess the conservation value of marine-type national parks, and finally, based on 21 sub-indicators, the method was validated by using literature and part of the current situation survey data in the Nanbeiji Islands region. The protection rate of important species' habitats in the existing protected areas was determined. The degree of environmental vulnerability of the protected areas was obtained. The assessment result of the conservation value evaluation method for the candidate areas of the national park of Nanbeiji Islands was obtained to be A-level, with a high conservation value of 4.45 points and a high suitability for the construction of the national park. Based on the assessment results, it can be seen that the Nanbeiji Islands are of great significance in terms of ecological protection, scientific research and eco-tourism in the Chinese Ocean in the Western Pacific Ocean, while the continuity and stability of their ecological functions need to be further strengthened and the establishment of a systematically planned network of protected areas is sought.