Tourism dynamos: Selective commodification and developmental conservation in China’s protected areas

• Published in: Geoforum Vol. 78; pp. 141 - 152
• Main Author: Zinda, John Aloysius
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Oxford Elsevier Ltd 01.01.2017; Elsevier Science Ltd
• Subjects: China; Circuits; Circulation; Commodification; Conservation; Environmental protection; Governance; Infrastructure; Land use; Local authorities; Local government; Neoliberalization; Protected areas; Quotas; Revenue; Rotating generators; Rural areas; Rural communities; Rural development; State role; Tourism; Tourist attractions; Towns; Transformations; China; Protected areas; Tourism; Neoliberalization; Rural development; China; Conservation
• ISSN: 0016-7185; 1872-9398
• DOI: 10.1016/j.geoforum.2015.08.004

[Display omitted] •Protected area tourism in China increasingly involves high-volume tourism run by local states.•The reservation of protected lands from market exchange enables “tourism dynamos”.•Local states selectively commodify scenery within attractions while controlling revenues.•Tourism dynamos replace community support with community management and upkeep of scenic façades.•Selective commodification and state mediation challenge “neoliberal conservation” framing. At scenic sites across China, rural officials compelled to maximize revenue use local state authority over protected areas to foster “tourism dynamos”. Local states set up infrastructure and institutions around rural attractions that channel the circulation of tourists, churning out revenues that meet quotas and fund further expansion of attractions and towns. To make these dynamos turn, local authorities have displaced resident-led tourism operations they had previously helped set up. Residents are reincorporated in varying ways and often retain land use rights. Meanwhile, as revenues stream out of attractions, what little is invested in environmental protection goes to maintaining scenery. Local governments also accomplish spatial transformations, within each park intensifying surplus generation in areas zoned for tourism while reserving other areas from use, and beyond park boundaries linking attractions together on tourism circuits radiating from central towns. This state-driven transformations depend on how the reservation of land from commodity exchange within protected areas comes together with specific state capacities to enable tourism intensification. These processes, which I label “developmental conservation,” call attention to selective commodifications and the mediating role of the state in protected area governance in China and beyond.