Objective The establishment of a concession system is a pivotal endeavor for China’s transition into the era of national parks. The concession system is of paramount importance, as it has the potential to alleviate fiscal pressures on public funds, enhance the efficiency of ecological governance, and stimulate social capital — all of which are indispensable for the sustainable development of national parks. This research posits that the absence of a clear delineation of rights and obligations among stakeholders poses a significant barrier to the effective implementation of the concession system. This ambiguity often results in frequent conflicts and impedes the development of management regulations, thereby obstructing the formulation of a comprehensive top-level design for the national park concession system. This research explores the current state of concession systems within China’s national parks, emphasizing the necessity for a unified framework to navigate the complexities that emerge from the interplay of stakeholders’ rights and obligations. Following the principle of equality of stakeholders’ rights and obligations, this research aims to provide a comprehensive theoretical and practical framework to guide ongoing research and the systematic construction of China’s national park concession system.
Methods This research is designed to investigate the overarching and universal challenges associated with the establishment of the national park concession system in China. It eschews micro-level methodologies while in favor of a macro-level comparative analysis, which encompasses a comprehensive examination of the related initiatives in all national parks and pilot national park. The research’s specific foci include the Three Rivers Source National Park, Giant Panda National Park, Northeast Tiger and Leopard National Park, Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park and Wuyi Mountain National Park, as well as the pilot national parks including Qianjiangyuan, Shennongjia, Nanshan, Qilian Mountain and Pudacuo. Guided by the tenets of stakeholder analysis, the research comprehensively identifies the stakeholder composition in national park concessions from three distinct vantage points: “ought to be” (ideal state), “is” (current state), and “enable to be” (strategies for realization). By meticulously analyzing extant legal frameworks, regulations, and policy documents, the research articulates the rights and obligations of each stakeholder and formulates actionable recommendations for the refinement of the national park concession system.
Results This research addresses the imperative need to delineate the rights and obligations of stakeholders within China’s national park concession system. It identifies the primary stakeholders as concession grantors, concessionaires, supervisory entities, and other pertinent parties such as communities and local governments. The findings of this research shed light on several pivotal issues within the idealized “ought to be” state of the concession system. For grantors, the optimal scenario necessitates their being administrative authorities, such as national park management bureaus (including provincial-level bureaus). However, the existing “is” state discloses legal conflicts when public institutions, such as management bodies, assume the role of grantor. The research proposes a “centralization and delegation” strategy to rectify these issues, advocating for higher authorities to retract the concession-granting powers of the aforesaid management bureaus, while concurrently delegating certain authority to these bureaus for specific project types and scales. For concessionaires, the ideal state encompasses comprehensive rights as delineated by the Administrative License Law of the People’s Republic of China and associated regulations, including the right to operate without interference, access to policy support, and claim compensation for damage to legal rights and interests. However, the prevailing reality reveals an incomplete scope of these rights across various national parks and pilot national parks, with some failing to adequately safeguard the concessionaire’s rights. Communities, as distinctive stakeholders, ought to possess rights exceeding those of a typical concessionaire, in light of their unique status as potential owners of collective natural resource assets and private property within national parks. The research uncovers that the current system falls short in addressing the community’s rights, particularly concerning active engagement in concession activities and benefit-sharing mechanisms. The research concludes with a set of recommendations to explicitly integrate stakeholder qualifications, rights, and obligations into legislation at multiple levels, establish concession systems grounded in the principle of right-obligation equivalence, and ensure the full realization of community rights within the national park concession system.
Conclusion This research conducts a thorough analysis of stakeholders in China’s concession framework, encompassing such shareholders as grantors, concessionaires and supervisory entities, from the three levels of “ought to be”, “is” and “enabled to be”. It scrutinizes the rights and obligations of these stakeholders and offers proposals for enhancement of the national park concession system. The research addresses the gaps in existing research, thereby serving as a valuable reference for both theoretical inquiry and practical development of China’s national park concession system, with a focus on balancing stakeholders’ rights and obligations. The scarcity of formal concession management policies in certain national parks and pilot national parks has resulted in a limited availability of research samples, necessitating additional data collection in future research endeavors. Furthermore, while this research concentrates on the analysis of policy documents, and identifies the deviations between the practical application and actual outcomes of policies and the intended objectives, which call for more in-depth investigation in subsequent research.
DownLoad: