TYPE Original Research PUBLISHED 14 July 2023 DOI 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 Spatial variation of perceived OPEN ACCESS equity and its determinants in a gateway community of Giant EDITED BY Lifeng Zhu, Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine, China REVIEWED BY Qiang Dai, Panda National Park, China Chinese Academy of Sciences (CAS), China Vanessa Hull, University of Florida, United States Qingyu Li 1, Junlong Huang 2, Yin Zhang 1*, Guangcan Gu 1 and *CORRESPONDENCE Dan Brockington 3,4,5 Yin Zhang 1 School of Architecture and Urban Planning, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China, 2 College of yinzhang@cqu.edu.cn Environment and Ecology, Chongqing University, Chongqing, China, 3 Institut de Ciència i Tecnologia RECEIVED 22 December 2022 Ambientals de la Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (ICTA-UAB), Barcelona, Spain, 4 Department of ACCEPTED 22 May 2023 Private Law, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona, Bellaterra, Spain, 5 ICREA, Pg. Lluís Companys, PUBLISHED 14 July 2023 Barcelona, Spain CITATION Li Q, Huang J, Zhang Y, Gu G and Brockington D (2023) Spatial variation of Social equity is essential in the governance of protected areas (PAs), as ignoring perceived equity and its determinants in a such consideration can lead to resistance and jeopardize conservation objectives. gateway community of Giant Panda National However, more research is required to understand the spatial heterogeneity of Park, China. Front. Ecol. Evol. 11:1129556. perceived social equity and its underlying spatial factors. Using a survey of 361 doi: 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 respondents, we presented spatial distribution patterns of perceived equity by COPYRIGHT kernel density estimation (KDE) in Giant Panda National Park, China. The regression © 2023 Li, Huang, Zhang, Gu and Brockington. analysis showed that local residents who live closer to the PA boundary are more This is an open-access article distributed under likely to develop negative responses and those who with easy access to tourism the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or spots have more positive procedural and distributional perceptions. Notably, reproduction in other forums is permitted, the proximity to the PA authority decreases locals’ perceptions of fairness in all provided the original author(s) and the aspects, which is potentially due to the opaque participative channels provided by copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in the PA authority. We argue that those spatial differentials in fairness perceptions accordance with accepted academic practice. are driven by the intrinsic discrepancy of biodiversity protection requirements and No use, distribution or reproduction is the unevenly distributed consequences of management policies. Key steps to permitted which does not comply with these terms. advance social equity considerations include multi-industry guidance, extending participative channels, and co-producing better compensation plans. Herein, this study appeals to a greater focus on the spatial aspect of social equity issues in PAs. KEYWORDS protected areas, spatial justice, social equity, fairness perception, spatial accessibility 1. Introduction Social equity has emerged as a vital aspect in governing PAs since the 2010s (McDermott et al., 2013; Bennett et al., 2020; Zafra-Calvo and Geldmann, 2020). Such fairness considerations were advanced in Aichi Target 11 in 2010, which sought to achieve more “effectively and equitably managed” PAs.1 Ethically, it is essential to incorporate social equity as conservation successes should not be built upon the sacrifices of local vulnerable groups (Brockington, 2002; 1 Convention on Biological Diversity Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011–2020—COP 10 (2010). E. coli. Available at: https://www.cbd.int/undb/media/factsheets/ (Accessed December 20, 2022). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 01 frontiersin.org Li et al. 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 Schreckenberg et al., 2016; Dawson et al., 2018; Lecuyer et al., 2019). to locals residing farther away. Similarly, Jurowski and Gursoy (2004) And instrumentally, positive fair judgments among local residents are noted that the proximity to tourism attractions was closely linked with frequently linked with higher local acceptance and compliance with how costs and benefits were distributed. In the broader assessment of conservation (Lind and Tom, 1988; Davenport et al., 2007; Suiseeya, social impact of PAs, Jones et al. (2020) highlighted the role of 2014). By contrast, negative perceptions can potentially lead to social geographical location in affecting subjective well-being levels of locals. conflicts and resistance (Schlosberg, 2007; Hirsch et al., 2011; Even though previous research has disclosed that the impact of Blicharska et al., 2016), which may decrease conservation effectiveness socioeconomic features, these factors may be strongly related to as a consequence (Martin, 2017; Hamann et al., 2018; Leach et al., geographical spatial location, which is not fully revealed and 2018; Strzelecka et al., 2022). To prevent such social deficiencies, interpreted yet. concerted efforts have been formed among researchers and The spatiality of social justice, though frequently overlooked in practitioners to strive for more equitably managed conservation areas. the conservation field, has proved to be exceedingly valuable in the The concern with questions of equity, fairness, and justice has long broader social background ever since 1960s, when Davies (1970) existed (Hay, 1995). In common parlance, those three concepts are linked justice to geography. While Rawls (1971) argued that the similar and interchangeable. However, in a stricter sense, each term distribution of resources is central to the geographical aspect of conveys a slightly different meaning (Njoh, 2013). According to justice, Soja (2010) further illustrated that the spatiality of human life Frederickson (1990), the concept of equity comprises an array of value should be understood as “a complex social product.” In many other preferences, organizational design, and management style. It is viewed fields including urban greening, blue space, open space, and rural as the connoting equality in the distribution of public service and the regions, the notion of spatial justice is frequently measured by the responsiveness to the needs of citizens. For Rawls (1971) equity entails accessibility to public facilities and other resources (Raymond et al., the assignment of duties and rights, focusing on how gains and losses 2016; Jian et al., 2020; Kenneth, 2020; Gradinaru et al., 2023). resulting from development initiatives are equitably distributed. Farrington and Farrington (2005) define accessibility as “the ability of Instead, the term of fairness connotes “rightness” both legally and people to access and participate in opportunities and activities.” While ethically. The requirement for fair treatment in the environmental spatial accessibility is usually assessed by considering the number of domain calls upon authorities to ensure that no societal group is cumulative opportunities, non-spatial accessibility usually emphasizes disproportionately affected by natural or man-made environmental non-geographical barriers relevant to social justice concepts (e.g., problems (Mobilizegreen, 2018). In addition, the concept of justice social class, income, race, and age; Morris et al., 1979). To understand draws directly from jurisprudence, calling for the impartial resolution the broader background of spatial justice is essential to provide of conflicting claims and/or the assignment of punishment to insights for our spatial analysis in the equitably management of PAs. transgressors (Njoh, 2013, 2022). Despite afore-mentioned differences, To address the afore-mentioned research gaps, the objectives of we do not distinguish between those three words in this study. our study are: (1) to quantitatively present the spatial variation of The notion of social equity comprises three indispensable and perceived fairness surrounding PAs; and (2) to identify and further interrelated aspects (Schlosberg, 2007; McDermott et al., 2013; Martin verify the spatial factors of fairness perceptions among local residents. et al., 2014; Pascual et al., 2014; Sikor et al., 2014; Schreckenberg et al., This study bridges the spatial justice theory to the biodiversity 2016; Zafra-Calvo et al., 2019). The component of distributional conservation field and further provides scientific references to equity was the earliest to be noticed (Adams, 1965; Hatfield et al., prioritize community-based countermeasures in PAs. 1978; Gordon, 2010; McLauchlan and Joao, 2011), and later came with the other two aspects, recognitional (Martin et al., 2016; Arsenault et al., 2019) and procedural equity (Marques et al., 2015; Mauerhofer 2. Materials and methods and Larssen, 2016). Zafra-Calvo et al. (2017) enriched this classification framework by proposing a suite of 10 indicators to assess 2.1. Study area social equity in PAs, and those indicators were later supplemented and applied in other case studies (Bennett et al., 2020). Also, plenty of The Tangjiahe Area of the Giant Panda National Park (TGPNP) research has sought to understand how local fairness perceptions are is located in Qingchuan County, Sichuan Province in China. This shaped. Recent studies have extensively focused on the effects of unfair conservation area was rated as an A-level nature reserve by the World events (Ohl et al., 2008; Lecuyer et al., 2019; Wang et al., 2019), Wildlife Fund for Nature (WWF), covering an area of 40,000 hectares demographic attributes (Kellerhals et al., 1997; Clayton and Opotow, and harboring a variety of rare and endangered species, such as giant 2003), connection to nature (Clayton et al., 2016; Strzelecka et al., pandas, snub-nosed monkeys, and takins. The total population of the 2022), personal expectations (Parris et al., 2014) and involvement, as surrounding communities is nearly 9,500, among which around well as physical and social environment (Colvin et al., 2015; Marques 1,100 residents live within the PA boundary (Yang, 2022; Zhang et al., et al., 2015; Agyeman et al., 2016). 2023). We select TGPNP as a case study for the following reasons: Despite the increasing attention paid to assessing fairness Firstly, the mountainous landform of TGPNP shapes a scattered, perceptions of residents in PAs, the spatial distribution of social equity isolated rural settlement pattern, referring that there is apparent needs more attention. Several authors have noticed that the distance heterogeneity in terms of environmental conditions. In addition, the from PAs is somehow correlated with social equity (Molina Murillo scattered distribution of tourist attraction resources inside and outside et al., 2016; Croucher, 2020), but mostly limited within the the reserve may have effects on fairness perceptions of local residents distributional scope. For instance, Carvache-Franco et al. (2021) (Mbise et al., 2021). proposed that local residents living closer to the parks were Secondly, the establishment of the TGPNP has imposed diverse acknowledged to have received more conservation benefits compared impacts on surrounding communities. For example, there are Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 02 frontiersin.org Li et al. 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 relatively severe human–wildlife conflicts within and around PAs, 2.2. Methods leading to loss of livestock and crops. Additionally, the TGPNP has a strong tourist attraction to the public, thus bringing about tourists and 2.2.1. Indicators of social equity employment opportunities to surrounding communities (Carvache- We measure the concept of social equity from three basic Franco et al., 2021). dimensions, recognitional equity (RE), procedural equity (PE), and Thirdly, the Administration of Tangjiahe Area (ATA) has carried distributional equity (DE). Regarding the specific indicators to out community-based conservation practices with local communities measure each dimension of equity, the scale is preliminarily developed since 1978, such as joint fire prevention and infrastructure building upon studies by Zafra-Calvo et al. (2017) and Bennett et al. (2020). supports, organizing co-management committees, and China Bee We modified and added some attributes based on the features of Breeding Cooperative. These diverse co-management strategies may TGPNP, such as Ecological compensation (DE2) and Wildlife conflicts have diverse impact on local fairness perceptions (Chen et al., 2022; compensation (DE3). In this way, five variables are finalized to Zhang et al., 2023). represent each equity aspect, and a total of 15 indicators are used to We selected four villages (Luoyigou, Yinping, Weiba, and depict the combined equity (CE) (Figure 2). Dongqiao) in the gateway town (Qingxi) of TGPNP as our research site. Luoyigou is only village located within the boundary of TGPNP, 2.2.2. Construction of the variable set for spatial whereas the other three villages are situated outside (Figure 1). The accessibility basic information of those villages is displayed in Table 1. Among When setting up the variable set to measure spatial accessibility in them, Luoyigou village is located within the boundary of PA, with communities around PAs, we finalized four indicators, including the most intensive human–wildlife conflicts. Local residents there access to PA boundary, access to PA authority, access to main roads, mainly rely on agriculture and farmhouse tourism for a living. In and access to tourism spots, listed in Table 2. contrast, community-based tourism in Yinping village has gained large popularity in the past 2 decades, providing substantial revenue • Accessibility to PA boundary: the designation of PA boundary for family inns and restaurants. Being adjacent to TGPNP, local can impose significant impact on local communities by exerting residents in Dongqiao village are mostly engaged in agriculture, restrictions on land-use and livelihood sources. Since plenty of breeding, and migrant work, while those of Weiba village are mainly studies have explored how the proximity to PA boundary can employed by a local stone processing company (Chen et al., 2022; affect locals’ conservation attitudes and well-being (Naidoo et al., Yang, 2022). 2019; Carvache-Franco et al., 2021), it is worth paying attention FIGURE 1 Map of the Tangjiahe area of the Giant Panda National Park. Our research area comprises Luoyigou, Yinping, Weiba, and Dongqiao villages, outlined by red lines. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 03 frontiersin.org Li et al. 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 to how the distance effect generated by the boundaries can affect managed by the local government, but also affected by fairness perceptions of local residents. governance measures of ATA. This means that accessibility of PA • Accessibility to PA authority: the communities around PAs are authority can affect residents’ likelihood of accessing policy different from ordinary rural areas, since they are not only information. Which consequently deserves further attention (Kenneth, 2020). TABLE 1 Basic information on the four selected villages in TGPNP, • Accessibility to main roads: as local residents spatially residing sourced from the ATA. across the mountainous area mainly rely on the road traffic to travel to hospitals, schools, and other public facilities, the road Luoyigou Yinping Weiba Dongqiao accessibility may play an important part in shaping the fairness village village village village perceptions of residents (Wang et al., 2021). Population 1,085 1823 1,389 1,160 • Accessibility to tourism spots: the access to tourist attractions is (persons) potentially linked with benefits received from tourist attractions. Number of 470 642 318 445 While some researchers believe that residents living near households attractions may have more positive perceptions of tourism (households) impacts (e.g., Mansfeld, 1992), others came to the opposite Geographical Inside TGPNP Outside Outside Outside conclusion (e.g., Williams and Lawson, 2001). There are tourist location TGPNP TGPNP TGPNP points distributed inside and outside the TGPNP, and how those Main Farmhouse Farmhouse Stone Planting, etc. geographical locations can affect local residents’ fair perceptions industry tourism, tourism, production should be taken into consideration. planting, etc. planting, and etc. processing, planting, 2.2.3. Data collection etc. 428 questionnaires were distributed and collected on-site from June 29, 2022 to July 7, 2022 in TGPNP. Simultaneously, 17 semi- Land area 62 39.7 22 27.92 structured interviews were conducted with stakeholders, including (km2) ATA staffs, community leaders, rangers, farmers, and other groups. FIGURE 2 Theoretical framework of social equity in PAs. Indicators refer to the literature of Bennett (2016), Zafra-Calvo et al. (2017), Zafra-Calvo et al. (2019), Dawson et al. (2018), Bennett et al. (2020), and Chen et al. (2022), added to and modified according to the characteristics of TGPNP. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 04 frontiersin.org Li et al. 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 TABLE 2 Descriptions of four variables of spatial accessibility. Third, ordinary least squares (OLS) regression was used to filter Variable Description Measurement out variables affecting fairness perceptions. Given the possible impact method of spatial correlation, a spatial econometric model was constructed to Accessibility to PA Distance from household Used ArcGis10.2’s proximity examine spatial factors on regional fairness perception. The models boundary to the nearest TGPNP value to calculate include a spatial lag model (SLM; Nurkse, 1996), considering the boundary (m) effects of spatial correlation between dependent variables of adjacent units, and a spatial error model (SEM; Yin and Zhang, 2008), which Accessibility to main Time distance from Used time distance takes into account the spatial correlation effects of variables. These roads household to the nearest calculation regression models were used to explain and reveal the inner county-level and correlations between fairness perception and its underlying spatial township-level road (m) factors. Those above regression models were all operated on Accessibility to PA Time distance from Used time distance Geoda1.2 software. authority household to the ATA calculation (min) Accessibility to Distance from household Calculated by using 3. Results tourism spots to the nearest tourism Euclidean distance resources (m) 3.1. Sample description The survey sample comprised 361 residents in Qingxi Town. The The questionnaire survey took the household as the basic unit and proportions of men and women were 45 and 55%, respectively. Many used random sampling to select respondents. The survey proportion surveyed residents were in elder age groups, with 70% aged 50 and is not less than 10% of the total population size of the village. At the over. About 66% respondents completed only primary or secondary same time, the spatial and geographical coordinates of the respondents’ school, and 22% never attended school. A vast majority of households were recorded as well. After excluding 67 invalid respondents (89%) have lived here for more than 20 years. Residents questionnaires with abnormal spatial geographic coordinates, the from Yinping and Luoyigou villages were less dependent on number of effective sample was 361, with an effective recovery agriculture, with 31 and 48% of respondents made a living by rate of 84%. agriculture, while the percentages for Weiba (66%) and Dongqiao The questionnaire consists of three parts. The first two sections (57%) were obviously larger. Residents with an average annual include a broad set of questions related to the demographic household income of less than 30,000 yuan accounted for the highest characteristics of local residents (e.g., gender, age, education, location, proportion in Dongqiao (80%), followed by Luoyigou (67%), Weiba and occupation), and their household characteristics (e.g., household (61%), and Yinping (54%) subsequently (see Supplementary Table C). income, family size, source of income, and place of residence). The final part of the questionnaire is about local people’s perceptions of fairness in the TGPNP, measured by formulating statements for each 3.2. Spatial variation patterns of perceived indicator of social equity on a five-point Likert scale (see equity Supplementary Tables A, B). The border of TGPNP was extracted from protected area maps As depicted in Figure 3A, the perceived recognitional equity was provided by ATA. The location of ATA was approached from Baidu obviously lower inside the border of TGPNP compared to the outside. map data2 on September 23, 2022. The data of tourism spots and main The recognitional equity score of Luoyigou was the lowest roads came from the tourism planning and road planning provided (Mean = 3.23) compared to the remaining three villages out of the PA by the Qingxi town government. With the support of the ArcGIS 10.2 boundary (Dongqiao = 3.97, Weiba = 3.81, and Yinping = 3.86). With platform, the Landsat 8 OLI_TIRS satellite digital product database respect to the procedural equity, there demonstrated a gradual from the China Geospatial Data Cloud website (http://www.gscloud. increase from northeast to southwest (Figure 3B). Weiba village cn/search, accessed on September 23, 2022) was used as the basic situated in the southwestern tip of our research region scored the geographic data. highest (PE = 2.51) among all. In terms of distributional equity, the core clusters were concentrated in the northwestern part of the study 2.2.4. Data processing area (Figure 3C). Among four selected villages, the highest First, we calculated an average score for each equity dimension distributional equity score was found in Luoyigou village (recognition, procedural, and distributive equity) by adding up five (Mean = 3.03), whereas the lowest was displayed in Dongqiao village indicators in this category for each respondent. The combined social (Mean = 2.43). equity score for individuals by averaging the scores across all 15 In addition, Figure 3D clearly presented the spatial indicators. Second, the kernel density estimation (KDE) was applied distribution of perceived combined equity, which shared a similar to characterize the spatial variation of fairness perceptions across the pattern with procedural equity and gradually increased from the recognitional, procedural, distributive, and combined equity. northeast to southwest. Dwellers in Weiba village tended to have more positive feelings for combined fairness, the average score of which was 2.77. By contrast, residents in Dongqiao village were frequently more disappointed with their lot (Mean = 2.41; see 2 https://map.baidu.com/ Supplementary Table D). Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 05 frontiersin.org Li et al. 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 FIGURE 3 Spatial distribution patterns of perceived equity across recognitional (A), procedural (B), distributional (C), and combined equity (D). 3.3. Detecting the spatial determinants on equity, the proximity with PA boundary and PA authority was perceived equity negatively linked local residents’ fairness perceptions. As to perceptions toward procedural equity, surrounding communities with According to OLS, both the statistical values of the Lagrange easy access to PA authority were more likely to perceive negatively, multiplier (lag) and the Lagrange multiplier (error) were significant at while those who with close connectivity to tourism spots behaved in the level of p < 0.01, presented in Table 3. The statistical values of an opposite way. In addition, positive judgments toward distributional robust LM (lag) and robust LM (error) were also significant, verifying equity were more likely to be found among local residents who lived the necessity to construct the spatial econometric models. The SEM far away from PA boundary and PA authority, and those who lived with a higher fitting coefficient than the SLM was selected for close to tourism spots (see Supplementary Table E). subsequent analysis (Anselin et al., 2004). The LogL of the SEM model was larger than that of the OLS model, while the AIC and the slope change (SC) values were much smaller than those of the OLS model, 4. Discussion indicating that the fitting performance of the SEM model had significantly improved compared with the OLS model. Thus, we used 4.1. Spatial determinants of perceived results from spatial regressions for subsequent analyses. fairness As shown in Table 4, local respondents living closer to the PA boundary and PA authority tended to develop more negative Our research results indicate that the spatial distribution of judgments on combined social equity, while those who residing near perceived justice varies across three equity dimensions. While the tourism spots were more likely to perceive adversely. For recognitional perceived recognitional equity is largely divided by the PA boundary, Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 06 frontiersin.org Li et al. 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 TABLE 3 Results of spatial dependence tests of the impact of spatial factors on perceived equity. Combined equity Recognitional equity Procedural equity Distributional equity Test MI/DF Statistical MI/DF Statistical MI/DF Statistical MI/DF Statistical value value value value Moran’s I 0.7078 35.8101*** 0.6565 33.2409*** 0.6808 34.4571*** 0.7204 36.4405*** (error) Lagrange 1 1217.6475*** 1 1046.0965*** 1 1117.2857*** 1 1255.6500*** multiplier (lag) Robust LM 1 13.6345 *** 1 16.5248*** 1 6.5442*** 1 6.7211*** (lag) Lagrange 1 1206.0329*** 1 1037.5547*** 1 1115.7592*** 1 1249.3058*** multiplier (error) Robust LM 1 22.0200 *** 1 8.0232*** 1 5.0177*** 1 9.3769*** (error) Lagrange 2 1219.6675*** 2 1054.0794*** 2 1122.3034*** 2 1256.0269*** multiplier (SARMA) *p < 0.1; ***p < 0.01. TABLE 4 Preliminary results of the impact of spatial factors on perceived equity. Access to Access to Access to Access to LogL AIC SC boundary authority roads tourism Combined equity Coef. 3.61 1.47 0.01 −2.38 327.368 −644.735 −622.132 Prob. 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.11 0.000*** Recognitional Coef. 6.24 0.32 −0.49 −0.18 289.262 −568.521 −545.917 equity Prob. 0.000*** 0.043* 0.984 0.398 Procedural equity Coef. 8.04 8.93 −0.03 −4.47 166.789 −323.578 −300.975 Prob. 0.06 0.000*** 0.07 0.000*** Distributional Coef. 2.49 9.48 −0.01 −9.20 75.133 −140.265 −117.662 equity Prob. 0.000*** 0.000*** 0.314 0.000*** *p < 0.05; ***p < 0.01. the overall procedural justice obviously increases from the northeast corroborate the results of Digun-Aweto et al. (2020) who presented to the southwest, and the optimism in local distributional perceptions that the proximity to national parks was most of the time accompanied tend to be clustered in the northwest direction. Despite numerous by pessimism toward conservation, for those nearby communities causes can be responsible for this heterogeneity, one innovative were much more affected by crop losses caused by wildlife. perspective of our study is to probe into its spatial predicators. One unexpected finding of our study was that the accessibility to First of all, the accessibility to PA boundary was the most PA authority has a negative effect on residents’ perceptions across all influential factor on recognitional perceptions among all spatial dimensions of fairness. Proximity to the ATA can decrease local variables. This refers to the fact the remoteness from the PA boundary communities’ perceived attitudes to the fairness of conservation. This increases locals’ positive judgments for recognitional justice. For one finding, though surprisingly, reflects the fact that the governance of thing, the land use and livelihood within the TGPNP boundary are ATA is questioned by locals. One potential cause is that PA authorities strictly restricted and controlled according to the Regulations on the can impose restrictions on local access to natural resources, and even Management of Nature Reserves. This leads to overwhelming low the act of designating PAs is seen by some as a form of land grabbing. scores of legal and traditional rights (RE3) and land ownership (RE4) Furthermore, there is also possibly that due to a lack of information- among respondents living inside the PA, adversely impacting sharing channels and insufficient participatory approaches provided recognitional equity. For another, this is also partially due to the by ATA diminishes their reputation. It is observed in TGPNP that widely existed human–wildlife conflicts, threatening the livelihood of some dwellers living far away mentioned that they did not know what local residents (RE2) in close proximity to the TGPNP. In our the ATA is, while those who living close complained the lack of interviews, villagers of Luoyigou complained that “wild boars came to participatory opportunities. As one interviewee grumbled, “If the ATA have crops every day,” so they were heavily “affected by such wildlife asked me to give suggestions or get involved with conservation, I’d accidents” for “losing the harvest throughout the year.” Those findings love to; but the thing is they never asked me.” In that case, accessibility Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 07 frontiersin.org Li et al. 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 to the ATA, though adds up to the probability to get access to Given that “oppression and inequity are rife at all geographic information, can enhance the likelihood to feel “marginalized” or scales” (Crampton and Elden, 2007), and the importance of seeking “excluded from the decision-making process” at the same time. This more equitably managed PAs we put forward some proposals for finding is consistent with study of He and Wei (2022) in Qianjiangyuan consideration by the PA authority. First, it is common to spot National Park, where local farmers spending more time on the human–wildlife conflicts surrounding the TGPNA, yet the current Internet tended to develop more negative attitudes toward compensation program for wildlife conflicts is merely undertaken conservation, illustrating the exposure to information could bring in Luoyigou village, causing widespread feelings for injustice among down feelings for justice. the remaining villages. Therefore, we suggest extending this Our research findings also indicated that the tourism accessibility program to other adjacent villages, providing economic imposes a positive-going impact on procedural and distributional compensation for losses of local livelihoods damaged by the fairness among local residents. The proximity with tourist attractions unexpected intruding of wildlife. Second, the restrictions imposed is frequently associated with higher scores of procedural and on land use within the TGPNP boundary have led to recognitional distributional judgments. This finding verifies a prevailing situation injustice, based on which we argue for initiating franchise that local residents living close to tourist attractions are usually mechanisms provided for inside dwellers to strive for more provided with more participatory chances and diversified livelihood equitably distributed income. Third, the proximity with ATA can choices, such as employment in hotels and hostels (Nelson and Makko, obviously reduce fairness perceptions, which is apparently due to 2005; Kideghesho et al., 2007; Lobora, 2016; Kaaya and Chapman, opaque policies and low participation in the policy formulation 2017; Mashauri, 2017). In the case study of TGPNP, local residents in process. Therefore, we call upon to optimize the community-based tourism-based villages were more likely to develop more positive participation procedures and involve locals in the planning, perceptions toward distributional justice (Yinping and Luoyigou, management, and policy formulation process. Fourth, as the mean = 2.93) than non-tourism villages (Weiba and Dongqiao, inclination of tourism policies lead to disappointed feelings among mean = 2.48). Mashauri (2017) argued that such inequitable benefit- residents who live far away, we advocate for more spatially scattered sharing mechanisms can impede locals from developing supportive tourism spots to balance income among communities. In particular, attitudes toward conservation in adjacent communities of Serengeti it is worthwhile to increase the added value of agricultural and National Park. forestry products (e.g., honey, persimmon, and fungus) in However, our study found no impact of traffic accessibility on surrounding forest-dependent communities (Zhang et al., 2023). perceived social equity in the context of TGPNA. We authors suppose this is potentially due to the “Village to Village” project, a road building and improvement project arranged for all villages 5. Conclusion surrounding the TGPNA, ensuring relatively equitable access to transport infrastructure among local dwellers. He and Wei (2022) This paper depicted the spatial patterns of fairness perceptions noticed that farmers with higher levels of satisfaction toward the in a gateway community of TGPNP, and examined the impact of basic infrastructure tended to have more positive conservation accessible factors on local fairness perceptions. Our main findings attitudes in Qianjiangyuan National Park. Such correlations deserve are summarized as follows: (1) The spatial patterns of perceived further exploration and verified in the context of TGPNP. fairness vary across three equity dimensions. The scores for recognitional equity are much lower in the interior side of TGPNP compared to the exterior; perceptions for procedural equity 4.2. Policy relevance gradually increase from the northeast to southwest; and core clusters of distributional equity are concentrated in the Our study, though attentively focusing on the spatial distribution of northwestern part of the study region. (2) Local residents living far perceived fairness, never intends to deny the driving force of biodiversity away from PA boundary (outside the park) are more likely to attributes and policy drivers behind. From the perspective of spatial develop positive feelings toward recognitional, distributional, and justice, human spatiality is socially constructed. This means that what is combined justice. (3) The proximity with PA authority is positively regarded as fair and just will vary from place to place, and may be affected associated with feelings of injustice across all surveyed fair and modified by the characteristics of a specific place decision (Plant, dimensions. (4) Local residents with easy access to tourism 1998). Therefore, the potential for seeking spatial justice by modifying attractions tend to develop more optimistic fairness perceptions in human spatiality according to the characteristics of a particular place procedural and distributional aspects. Furthermore, we argue that should exist in all situations. Soja (2010) argued that spatial justice and those spatial differentials in fairness perceptions are actually driven injustice can be seen as both outcome and process, as geographies or by the intrinsic discrepancy of biodiversity protection requirements distributional patterns that are in themselves just/unjust as the processes and unevenly distributed management policies. This points to the that produce these outcomes. If PA authorities fail to implement fair and need for promoting multi-industry guidance, extending legal allocation policies and protection compensation mechanisms, it will participative channels and improving co-producing compensation not only weaken the communities’ trust in political institutions, but also plans in TGPNP. undermine the level of spatial justice. In short, as mentioned above: local Despite all those findings, some research limitations remain. For characteristics, interacted with structural factors such as governance one thing, our study region is limited within a gateway community of policy systems, can exert significant impact on the rights and a national park, excluding other non-gateway communities. A participation of residents, thus consequently forming the spatiality comprehensive study incorporating all adjacent communities in the of injustice. future might come up with more comprehensive research findings. Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution 08 frontiersin.org Li et al. 10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556 For another, the spatial distribution pattern of perceived equity may Acknowledgments vary across PAs with different types of natural resources. As TGPNP is situated in a mountainous region with abundant forest resources, The authors would like to thank all the reviewers and editors future researches incorporating marine resources, wetland, and who contributed their time and knowledge to this study, and also grassland are urgently needed to make comparisons. More research owe special thanks to Peng L., Liang Y.L., Wang L.C., Chen Q.J., shedding light on the spatial aspect of equitably managed PAs are Zhang Y.Q., Shen B.S., Chen J.X., and Zuo C.L., who were involved constantly required. in the tough field survey surrounding TGPNA. DB would like to acknowledge the support of an Advanced ERC Fellowship “CONDJUST” (No.101054259) and note that this research Data availability statement contributes to ICTA-UAB “María de Maeztu” Program for Units of Excellence of the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation The original contributions presented in the study are included in (CEX2019-000940-M). the article/Supplementary material; further inquiries can be directed to the corresponding author. Conflict of interest Author Contributions The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could QL: introduction, field survey, statistical analysis, literature review, be construed as a potential conflict of interest. and original draft preparation. JH: statistical analysis, methodology, and original draft preparation. YZ: introduction, field survey, conceptualization, data curation, literature review, original draft Publisher’s note preparation, project administration, and funding acquisition. GG: review and editing. DB: conceptualization, and review and editing. All All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version. authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or Funding claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher. This research was funded by National Natural Science Youth Program (grant number 52108040), the China Postdoctoral Science Foundation (grant number 2021M700574), and the National Natural Supplementary material Science Program (grant number 51978094), and also funded by the National Natural Science Foundation of China (No. 72241413) and The Supplementary material for this article can be found online Natural Science Foundation of Chongqing CSTC (No. at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fevo.2023.1129556/ cstc2021jcyj-bshX0027). full#supplementary-material References Adams, J. S. (1965). “Inequity in social exchange” in Advances in Experimental Social Chen, Q., Zhang, Y., and Zhang, Y.，Kong, M. (2022). Examining social equity in the Psychology. ed. L. Berkowitz, vol. 2 (New York: Academic Press), 267–269. co-management of terrestrial protected areas: perceived fairness of local communities in Giant Panda National Park, China. 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