Residents’ Attitudes Towards Tourism in a Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems Pilot Site: a Case Study in China

Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems (GIAHS) is a wide program to promote the conservation and adap-tive management of such systems and their associated landscapes, biodiversity, knowledge systems and cultures. Rice-Fish Systems (RFS) in Longxian village of China, as a traditional agricultural system, was selected as one of the five pilot sites of GIAHS in 2005. Researchers have paid more attention to the dynamic conser-vation and adaptive management of RFS because it is under severe threats from global development challenges. Tourism is suggested to be brought into the RFS conservation program as an alternative industry. This paper presents a comparative study of residents in three types of farm household in Longxian, seeking attitudes to the RFS conservation and tourism development and ways in which such information may guide future strategies. Results show resi-dents, belonging to the household type in which most family mem-bers are abroad, have the most positive attitudes to RFS conserva-tion and tourism development; while residents, as other household type in which less than 50% of family members are abroad, are the least sensitive group in these three household types, due to the motivation of moving abroad weakening their enthusiasm to participate in the local activities. Implications are discussed in the context of how resident attitudes will affect the future manage-ment of GIAHS conservation and tourism development, and then measures are put forward to foster tourism cooperation and multi-stakeholders process establishment.