Download Management & Engineering On the Ecotourism Development of Poyang Lake

Management & Engineering 14 (2014) 1838-5745
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Management & Engineering
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On the Ecotourism Development of Poyang Lake
Lintao ZHU
School of Foreign Languages, Jiangxi University of Finance and Economics, 330032, P.R.China
KEYWORDS
ABSTRACT
Poyang Lake,
Ecotourism,
Policies and proposals
It is inevitable to develop the ecotourism of Poyang Lake, for Poyang Lake has a unique
wetland ecosystem, rich tourism resources, the obvious geographical advantages and broad
market prospects. However, in recent years, due to over-cultivation, soil erosion, over-fishing,
indiscriminate killing and other acts of vandalism, its ecological environment has been
severely damaged, which has a negative impact on the ecotourism. This paper begins with the
analysis of various problems, such as management issues, funding issues and environmental
issues. Further, this paper delivers various countermeasures in order to achieve the sustainable
ecotourism development of Poyang Lake.
© ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
1 Introduction
The term “ecotourism” was first proposed in the early 1980s by Ceballos Lascurain, Special Adviser of International Union for
Conservation of Nature (IUCN) and Mexican expert.[1] A definition given by World Bank’s Environment Department and Ecotourism
Association goes like this, ecotourism is to go to natural areas to understand the cultural and natural history of the environment, it
will not damage the nature, and it will also make the local communities reap the financial benefits from the protection of natural
resources. Nature Conservation Society of Japan (NACS • J) holds that ecotourism is to provide the facilities of caring for the
environment and environmental education, so the tourists can understand and appreciate the natural regions, and thus, contribute a lot
to the protection of the natural regions, the culture, and the regional economy. [2] Ecotourism was introduced into China in the
mid-1990s. Especially, the very first time in 1999, the Ecotourism Year was established. Now a decade or so went by, National
Tourism Administration identified the year of 2009, National Theme Tourism Year, for a second time, as the “Year of Ecotourism”,
with the theme slogan of “Approaching the Green Tourism, Feeling Ecological Civilization”.
Poyang Lake is located at the North part of Jiangxi Province, at 28.22 to 29.45 N, 115.47 to 116.45 E, 173 kilometers long from
North to South, up to 74 kilometers wide from East to West, and 16.9 kilometers wide in average, with an average water depth of 8.4
meters, maximum depth of 25.1 meters, volume about 27.6 billion cubic meters, which is the largest freshwater lake in China. One of
the important content of the strategies for ecological economy of Jiangxi Province is to develop the ecotourism-oriented tourist
industry into a new pillar industry. In 2000, Jiangxi Provincial Committee and the Provincial Government put forward “they will
support tourism as a pillar industry”. Tourism development overall plan identifies ecotourism in Jiangxi as the dominance, and
Poyang Lake wetland ecotourism as one of the first eco-tourism zone. [3] Wetland protection of Poyang Lake represents China’s
international image of performance, and the effective protection and rational utilization of its resources bear an extremely important

Corresponding author.
E-mail address: [email protected]
English edition copyright © ST. PLUM-BLOSSOM PRESS PTY LTD
DOI:10.5503/J.ME.2014.14.016
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role in protecting and promoting the sustainable development of economic society of Jiangxi. Meanwhile, Poyang Lake area is also
comparatively poor in Jiangxi. Thus, the contradiction between protection and restoration of wetlands and socio-economic
development in this area has become more and more prominent with the implementation of returning grain fields to the Lake.[4] To
help Poyang Lake and surrounding counties shake off poverty must be achieved through eco-tourism. Poyang Lake ecotourism has
many advantages, but it is also faced with many difficulties and challenges, which needs to be urgently settled.
2 Analysis of Poyang Lake Ecotourism Development
Poyang Lake has congenital conditions for the development of ecotourism, and has a huge tourist market. And with the growth of
people’s ecological consciousness, the demand for eco-tourism will continue to grow.
2.1 International wetland reserve
In 1983, Jiangxi Province firstly set up the wetland sample in the Poyang Lake wetland natural protection area—Poyang Lake Bird
Protection Area of Jiangxi Province (formerly of Poyang Lake National Nature Reserve). Jiangxi Poyang Lake National Nature
Reserve is a wetland of international importance, a member of the Living Lakes Network of the world, one of the ten ecological
function-protected areas, and also globally important ecological zones designated by the World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF). It is
the most typical of lakes and wetlands in the eastern region of China, and the important storage lakes of the Yangtze River, plays a
fundamentally special role of ecological function, such as a huge flood control and conservation of protecting biological diversities,
maintaining regional and national ecological security, significantly promoting the environmental protection of China and even the
world’s wetlands.
2.2 Location advantages
Lake area is, to the east, closed to the Yangtze River Delta, the most promising region of China, and Fujian coastal developed areas;
to the West, close to the upper reaches of the Yangtze River, which shows the obvious regional advantages. Beijing-Kowloon,
Zhejiang-Jiangxi and Anhui-Jiangxi railway intersection are meeting here, and Changjiu, Jiujing, Jingfu and jingwuhuang highways
criss-cross. Nanchang is the only capital city along the Beijing-Kowloon Railway, having the clear geographic advantage; national
planning construction of highway large channel from Dongying, Shandong to Hong Kong will vertically pass through this region,
especially the construction and opening of Changwan Highway and Poyu Highway makes the future of external communication
degrees upgrade to a new level, regional traffic within and outside this region will become more developed, the location advantages
of cities and counties will be easily highlighted, [5] rendering out radiation connecting economic centers of the provinces and regions
around and “One-Ring-Ten-Pass” transport channel of urban agglomeration, providing convenient transportation conditions to
Poyang Lake ecotourism.
2.3 Rich tourism resources
Poyang Lake has a long history, rich cultural heritage, beautiful lake scenery is the perfect combination of well-preserved cultural
landscape, the enriched content of Lake District Bird Watching ecotourism. Millennium Town—Poyang town and Wu towns;
National Wetland Park, Dutch Church, Luoxing Rock, Shizhong Mountain, Xie Mountain, Laoye Temple, Toad Stone, Boat Dwellers,
and the legend about the war between Zhu Yuanzhang and Chen Youliang. The complex ecosystem structure of Poyang Lake wetland
creates a unique and precious wetland biodiversity. Poyang Lake is rich in biological resources, according to incomplete statistics, the
higher plants in Poyang Lake wetland has 697 kinds, 45 different kinds of mammals, 81 kinds of amphibians and reptiles, 122 kinds
of fish, 87 kinds of shellfish. In particular, more than 310 kinds of birds are living here, accounting for 24.56% of the total of 1 262
kinds of birds in China, 73.81 percent of the 420 species of birds, the total number of Jiangxi, [6] ten of which have been protected
legally, at the first level, by our government such as white crane, hooded crane, white stork, black stork, the Great Bustard, the
Mid-Autumn merganser, relict gull, white-tailed sea eagle, imperial eagle, golden eagle; 44 kinds of which at the second level, such
as white-naped crane, grey crane, swan. Poyang Lake’s geological structure is divided into two major parts, the north and the south.
The northern part from Hukou to Xingzi segment is the Hukou graben, the southern great water region belongs to the Poyang Lake
off concave. Therefore, the Poyang Lake basin is a comparatively large-scaled rift basin resulting from crustal extension. Poyang
Lake, the shape of the gourd, is bounded by the Songmen Mountain, and divided into the north part and the south part. The southern
lake district is a major part, wide, shallow, with relatively narrow, deep area in the northern part known as the river watercourse. The
geomorphological features Poyang Lake are very complex, composed of hilly levee of paddy fields, waterways, marshland, islands,
lakes, branching stream. Having a bird’s-eye view of Poyang Lake, we can see the spectacular scenery of the island-like surface of
the water landscape. There are 41 major islands, the largest of which is the Lianhu Mountain covering 41.6 square kilometers. This is
absolutely able to illustrate the Poyang Lake has plenty of tourism resources. [7]
2.4 Policy support
In October 1999, the provincial government clearly states that tourism should be developed to become a pillar industry of the
national economy of the early 21st century in Jiangxi Province. January 1, 2000, the provincial government has made the strategic
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decision to accelerate the development of tourism and “to support tourism as a pillar industry”. In 2001, the provincial government
has put forward a strategic plan to make Jiangxi become a “back garden” of tourism and leisure industries of those developed coastal
areas. In 2002, Tourism Economic Work Conference proposed a strategic concept that Jiangxi should be built into “China’s large
garden and even the world’s large garden”. In July, 2008, Provincial Tourism Bureau brought out “The Overall Planning of Jiangxi
Poyang Lake Ecotourism development”. In December 12, 2009, the State Council officially approved the “Poyang Lake Ecological
Economic Zone Planning”, marking the construction of Poyang Lake Ecological Economic Zone has been elevated to national
strategies. Three policies have been granted: First, to increase the fiscal and policy support; Second, to strengthen financial policy
support; Third, to provide major project support.
3 Problems in the Development of Poyang Lake Ecotourism
Poyang Lake ecotourism development enjoys many advantages and shows infinite vitality, however, there are still a variety of
problems, and many of which are urgent enough to be settled.
3.1 The lack of reasonable management mechanism
Currently, several departments such as water conservancy, agriculture, forestry, environmental protection, transportation, homeland
and local government are involved in the management of Poyang Lake, the result of which is that we cannot find any effective
management available though there are so many departments. First of all, in the departments involved in the management of Poyang
Lake, the water conservancy department is responsible for flood control, dams and sand mining; agriculture for fisheries resources
and fishermen production; forestry for the management of several important migratory birds protected areas and wetlands in Poyang
Lake; environmental protection for monitoring the pollution around the Poyang Lake; transportation for the management of ships and
waterway regulation; the department of land for the management of the lakebed gravel resources which will be under the control of
the local government once it reaches the shore. Each department is responsible for one particular field. Even the time period for each
department to conduct the management jobs also differ from one to another. Second, the Fishery Management Bureau, also named
Poyang Lake Management Bureau, under the Jiangxi Provincial Agriculture Department, is currently Poyang Lake nominal
management institutions, but only able to manage the Poyang Lake Fisheries Resource. The functions of the existing management
institutions are single enough, management approaches imperfect, which cannot take up the responsibilities for integrated watershed
management.
3.2 Comprehensive management of schistosomiasis
Special climate environment makes Poyang Lake region a hotbed of schistosomiasis germs. Poyang Lake area has vast lake beach
and grassland, and snails can be widely seen, which makes Poyang Lake the most severe schistosomiasis endemic area in Jiangxi
Province and even the entire country. After more than 40 years of active prevention, there has been a significant reduction of
epidemic in the lake district. However, according to the survey conducted by the related departments in recent years, the area of
6.31x105 square kilometers or so is still affected by snails in Poyang Lake, accounting for 95.69% of the total area in Jiangxi
Province, with 105 cases of schistosomiasis found, more than 2 million people threatened, nearly 940,000 cows infected, taking up
4.5% of the total number of cattle. [8] These are seriously restricting the development of ecotourism in Poyang Lake.
3.3 Reduction in biodiversity
Caused by the expansion of the agriculture, the habitat area of living things is shrinking. According to statistics, since the liberation,
Poyang Lake area was reduced from 5,160 square kilometers in 1954 to 3 693.1 square kilometers in 1998, and the cumulative
reclamation area was up to 1,480.7 square kilometers equivalent to currently 39.72% of the total lake area. Poyang Lake, thus,
suffered the great loss of volume of more than 8 billion cube meters equivalent to currently 53% of the total lake volume; [9] due to
the over-fishing, over-hunting and predatory management, biodiversity drastically reduced. In recent decades, the Poyang Lake has
been remaining in the overdeveloped state resulting in the severe recession of biological resources. Such fish of higher economic
value as whitebait, dolphin, and finless porpoises in Poyang Lake has become a rare species. Despite repeated prohibitions, the
indiscriminate over-hunting of birds has made bird species reduce sharply, and leading some even to the point of extinction. Serious
environmental pollution endangered the survival of wildlife. With the acceleration of industrial and urban development, in particular,
the “5 River” watershed economic development and population increase, a large number of industrial wastewater and domestic
sewage is discharged into “5 River” and then into Poyang Lake, therefore, the lake pollution gradually worsened. The quality of the
lake water kept moving downward. In the whole lake, at present, the excessive rate of Zinc reaches over 90%, and the maximum
detected value is 3.23 mg/L; Copper up to 20% to 30%, the maximum detected value is 0.188 mg/L; Phenol, a toxic and hazardous
substance, the maximum detected value is 0.04 mg/L; Cyanide, the maximum detected value is 0.038 mg/L, oil has exceeded 78% in
flat water period. [10] Due to the reduction of biodiversity, it will greatly affect the eco-tourists to watch migratory birds and taste fish
in Poyang Lake, thereby affecting the ecotourism development in the lake district.
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3.4 Depletion of water resources
Water resources refer to the various states of water that people are able to directly or indirectly use, mainly including the freshwater
resources in surface water and groundwater. No water, no life. Now the Poyang Lake water issue is the most important and most
difficult to solve. The dry season also has impact on the Poyang Lake ecological economic development. Last year, a report in the
newspaper said the surface of Poyang Lake water was continuing to decline and shrink. Water shrinking will cause greater damage to
the ecosystem. If it proceeds to happen like this, it will be the most difficult problem to solve. If we don’t work this fundamental
problem out, whether it is in the water or on the beach, things are adverse. Opening Dacha Lake has been separated into small lakes
by local fishermen who await a couple of months to drain the water to catch fish. The broken low dykes, sluices form several small
butterfly-shaped lakes of National Nature Reserve. They are so small that you will feel so sorry for those rare migratory birds. The
fishermen in the middle of the lake said once the wetlands get dry, the fish dies, and so far a few migratory birds could be seen. With
no doubt, migratory birds this year will certainly be much less than ever before. The depletion of water resources will unavoidably
lead to the destruction of fisheries resources and the severe degeneration of wetlands.
3.5 The development of ecotourism market
Ecotourism is a market or a part of a market. So how to develop this market will naturally become a pragmatic issue faced by those
tourist destinations and tour operators and expected to be solved effectively. Many cases showed people were talking about
ecotourism, and many places in China have risen, in their travel planning, eco-tourism as a strategy for the development of the local
tourism, but it seemed to be little discussion about how to develop this market. This in itself means there may be difficulties.
Currently, the promotion of Poyang Lake ecotourism is very limited. A lot of people have not heard of it, why? I believe there must
be something wrong with the way to promote. First, market positioning. Is the object of the Poyang Lake ecotourism the Chinese
people or foreigners? Whether to charge different prices depending on the different objects? As for ecotourism marketing issue, what
kind of way of marketing to adopt? The second is the development of ecotourism products.
3.6 The lack of funding sources
For the ecotourism construction of Poyang Lake, the financial problems are very realistic. Without economic support, continuous
protection cannot be done. Sewage treatment, river repairing, demolition of polluting factories and so on should be based on the
money, and these may even involve billions of funds, which cannot be fully supported by the provincial government. The faster the
economy develops, the higher the cost of protection will be, and the more sewage flows down along the river will be, so it is
necessary to establish the funding support mechanisms. Then what means to be adopted to solve this problem?
4 Conclusion
To achieve the economic development around the Poyang Lake region, the questions posed above should be highlighted for concern.
If solved, the goal of Poyang Lake ecological economic zone will be achieved, people's income will increase, and it will also promote
the development of the local economy, and lay the foundations for stable and relatively fast economic development in Jiangxi
Province.
First, the government should straighten out the Poyang Lake basin management system, establish the effective and comprehensive
coordination body to protect develops and make full use of Poyang Lake, strengthen the integrated management of the Poyang Lake
wetland and watershed management. The province is expected to straighten out the management system as soon as possible, and to
set up a necessarily high-level, authoritative, strongly coordinated and greatly humanistic Management Committee of the Poyang
Lake. And it is also highly recommended that a Deputy Governor to serve as the Director of the Management Committee making the
provincial government directly get involved in the management, which will be beneficial to the construction and development of
ecological tourism in the Poyang Lake.
Second, schistosomiasis in Poyang Lake has been a long time, now there is an urgent need to solve it. County and municipal health
departments around the Poyang Lake should go to grass roots to advocate more, spread disease knowledge, and treat the local
population; strengthen the construction of professional talents, enhance research and development efforts; establish specialized
treatment institutions, prevent the spread of disease; schistosomiasis is not only having an impact on human beings, but also
threatening the health of poultry, for example, cattle, sheep, and pigs. So it’s necessary to invest more in health inspection of poultry
and ensure the safety of poultry. Moreover, in recent years, reclaiming land from lakes, water and soil erosion and other problems,
have seriously affected the water resources of Poyang Lake, thereby affected the ecological system. Consider making “Poyang Lake
Water Resources Protection” as a construction project with national ecological compensation mechanism, then implement it as soon
as possible; target water resources tax clearly, uniquely used for the protection of water resources. Thus, by doing so, it can help to
improve the health status and water quality of ecotourism, providing a good ecological environment for the development of Poyang
Lake ecotourism.
Third, how to develop ecotourism market? One is through travel agencies; the second is through the network. It is a trend that the
Internet has become an important tourism marketing channel. We need to seek the potential market from such channels as Internet
facing the Intellectuals, white collars and the youth. In addition, we should develop the ecotourism products. The development of
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tourism products should be guided by the following principles: the principle of sustainable development, market-oriented principle,
the principle of local characteristics, and principle of ecological education. Ecotourism products mainly include: first, ecotourism
activities, including the combination of natural and cultural landscape of rural tourism and experience tour. For example: determinate
migratory bird sanctuary, then guide eco-tourists to watch birds in the region. Poyang Lake has a stable volume of tourists and a
certain value of scientific investigation. And with the proceeding reasonable development of ecotourism, we can naturally expand the
tourism market, like developing scientific expedition of wetland ecotourism as tour products; providing summer camps, winter camps
and other activities, as well as business meetings, wedding travel, religious pilgrimages, pottery culture, Red culture; second,
designing the eco-tour routes, including pure ecotourism routes and comprehensive tourist routes; third, ecotourism facilities. Build
green hotels, eco-resort, green shops; the forth, ecological agriculture. Develop farming, cultivate Green products, for instance,
Artemisia arborescens and Chunbulao, in four seasons, provide eco-cuisine for eco-tourists; the fifth, eco-translation system.
Establish signboard system, brochures, tourist map, information center, media and tour guide; the sixth, ecotourism commodities.
Local products: Chunbulao, Artemisia arborescens, the Poyang whitebait; ecotourism food: rice in Lotus leaf, rice in bamboo tube;
Cultural promotional items: crafts, artworks and so on.
Fourth, as for Poyang Lake ecotourism funding, we should broaden channels, multi-funding cannot be fully supported by the
government. One way is to adopt the joint way, for instance, mass self-financial provisions, financial allocations, community
sponsorship; the other is the establishment of special funds for special use. Eco-investment fund can also be established in Poyang
Lake, which is an essentially industrial investment fund. Industrial investment fund is an equity investment in unlisted companies
providing management services and benefit sharing, risk-sharing system of collective investment, mainly engaged in venture capital
investment, enterprise restructuring and industrial investments in the fields of infrastructure investment. This industrial investment
fund would be able to take advantage of their talent and intelligence, selecting projects for intellectual support to the projects, the
enterprises, on the other hand, widely attract investors, accumulating a large number of community funds to form the financial
advantage; the third is to take bank loans. The provincial government should take the lead to solve the financing problem. The fourth
is to seek a way to integrate the various financial supports from international organizations by all kinds of means, including
intensifying propaganda. We can absorb all kinds of financial supports from different international financial organizations; we can
also draw funds from other official and unofficial international organizations to tackle this financial issue of the development of
Poyang Lake ecotourism.
Fifth, we can take advantage of a combination of circular economy and ecotourism. And, under the guidance of the theory of circular
economy, we can realize the implementation of ecological enterprises internally, the ecological development between the enterprises,
and the one between the ecological tourism industry and other industries. By doing so, we can protect the sustainable development of
the tourism industry and promote the ecological tourism industry. [11] Establish the ecotourism circular economy park which is a park
based on the ecological recycling, material and energy recycling, including the communication in tourism products and tourism
services, especially the exchange of tourism by-products produced during the course of organizing the production and consumption
of tourism enterprises in the most ideal form of time and space, so as to make tourism enterprises and communities pay the minimum
of waste processing cost, promote the tourism resources, enhance the efficiency of energy use, improve and optimize the tourism
environment through tourism waste reduction. Ecotourism circular economy park highlights the link between enterprises in the park,
the communication, also the participation, the collaboration and the coexistence between groups, the purpose of which is to form the
ideal industrial chain and the network in which enterprises and organizations can benefit from each other, and further realize the goal
of the harmonious and sustainable development of the park, economy, society and environment through the cycle of matter, energy,
information exchange in the park. [12] Ecotourism circular economy park is built on the ecological development model of tourist
industry based upon the principles of “6R”, [13] among which the principle of minimization is the most fundamental principle in the
circular economy. Therefore, tourism is an important area for the development of circular economy. Accelerating the development of
circular economy in the tourism industry can contribute to the achievement of sustainable development of regional tourism,
promoting the circular economy, realizing the coordination of the society, the economy and ecological environment. And it is also an
important support for the implementation of the Scientific Concept of Development and building a harmonious society.
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