| Summary: | 博士 === 中國文化大學 === 地學研究所博士班 === 99 === In recent years there has been worldwide concern over environmental degradation and resource depletion, focusing research attention on common-pool resources and rights. The Jhuzihhu area in Yang Ming Shan, Taiwan, typifies natural resource-based, tourism-oriented common-pool resources characterized by competition between crowding and difficulties of exclusion, tendencies to overuse, and lack of maintenance incentives. Recent increases in visitors, opportunities for the tourism and leisure industry, widespread violations by local catering businesses, as well as numerous secondary environmental impacts and ecological degradation, have led to tensions between different interests and have confronted management with urgent problems. This study, from a structural and institutional viewpoint, investigated the relationships between parties of different interests, values, and authority in the Jhuzihhu area regarding common property resource management issues. It analyzed the distribution of regional economic and sociopolitical authority in collective conservation action and the impact and structuring of institutional authority in order to provide an effective link between economic incentives and environmental conservation measures as well as recommendations for external institutional adjustments. To achieve this, the study investigated case background contexts, incentives, collective action, and dynamic interaction of external and internal institutions, employing a primarily inductive approach with qualitative research methods. Primary among these were semi-structured in-depth interviews supplemented by informal interviews, participant observation, data collection, and analysis of literature. In particular, through a “purposive sampling” strategy, selecting specific key persons for interview, the study was able to obtain usable data and, by cross-checking different sources of information, was able to describe a close-to-factual state of affairs.
The study found that the crux of the Jhuzihhu common-pool resources management problem was high-value environmental resources and weak institutional mechanisms, giving a few local elites the opportunity to use common environmental resources for private wealth and not, according to the “developer protect, destroyer restore” principle, to bear corresponding responsibility for the ecological environment. The persistence of this phenomenon of predatory elites increases the divergence of local interests, leading to the loss of social capital, thus weakening collective conservation action and the development of sound management institutions. The public sector management approach, limited by regulations and low regulatory incentives, lags behind and is unable to positively face correction, resulting in loss of environmental rights and common property to other residents. In conclusion, the key to changing the status quo, of a few elite interests exploiting environmental resources in the Jhuzihhu area and consequent collapse of collective conservation action, lies in the future relationships of all interest parties: how under the auspices of the public sector to establish a fair and reasonable commercial interest feedback system and a fair and equitable distribution of responsibilities among interested parties in order to combine economic development and environmental protection incentives. It is suggested that public sector management authorities revise commercial planning for the Jhuzihhu area via a development permit system, featuring environmental services payments for establishment of tourism and leisure industries, and the establishment of a public-private partnership management system to equitably adjust the rights of parties relating to environmental protection interests and responsibilities, thereby achieving sustainable management of common environmental resources in the area.
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