[Note: this case study originally appeared in the publication Socio-ecological Production Landscapes in Asia.]

Yang County is located in the Hanzhong Basin. The county has an area of 3,206 km2 and altitudes between 3,071 m at the highest and 390 m at the lowest (The Book of Shaanxi Province Map, 2010). The Han River, which is the longest arm of the Chang Jiang River, runs from west to east through plains in the south part of the county and all drainage systems flow into the Han River. The average annual temperature is 12 to 14 degrees Celsius (Zhang et al., 2004) with the highest temperature at 38.7 degrees Celsius (Ou, 2010). The average annual precipitation is some 900 to 1,000 mm (Zhang et al., 2004). Thus, Yang County belongs to the temperate humid climate zone. There are 16 towns, 10 villages and 367 administrative villages. The county’s population as of 2004 was 440,000. Of the total population, the nonfarming population was 67,700, which means the majority of the inhabitants of the county are farmers (Cao, 2009). According to the county’s statistics in 2004-2005, Yang County had an average annual income per farmer as low as RMB 1,400- 1,800, far below the national average rural income per capita of RMB 2,622 in the same year, and hence has been designated as a State-level Poor County (Yueming et al., 2007). Around the center of the county, there are market places and employment opportunities in commerce and the tourism industry, while no such employment opportunities are found in the inter-mountain areas, where poverty is particularly severe (Su and Kawai, 2004).

In 2006, China prepared the “National Environmental Protection Plan in the Eleventh Five-Years” that sets forth its goals, including the development of ecological reserves, the establishment of integrated rural environmental protection and the building of eco-models. It specifically prioritizes the protection of wild birds, especially the Crested Ibis, as it is listed in the IUCN (the International Union for Conservation of Nature) Red List of Threatened Species and has been traditionally treasured by people as “a bird bringing happiness.” The worldwide attention paid to the protection of the Crested Ibis lies behind the Chinese government’s prioritization of this species in its policies (JICA, 2010).

Until the end of the 19th century, the Crested Ibis was widely distributed in Northeast Asia, including China, Russia, the Korean Peninsula and Japan. Due to the increase in the felling of the trees that were used by nesting colonies of these birds, the conversion of wetlands to agricultural land and hunting, the number of crested ibises had been dwindling to such an extent that the species had been considered extinct in the wild after the last five wild ibises were captured together in Japan in January 1981 (Xiaoping Yu et al., 2006; BirdLife, 2003). Although ibises had been considered extinct in China, seven individuals were found in a village in the interior of Yang County in May 1981 and measures to protect them were taken. Crested ibises have been protected as well as artificially bred, as a result the number of wild ibises in Yang County increased to over 800 as of 2011. The Nature Reserve was established in 2001, and currently the Shaanxi Hanzhong National Nature Reserve has an area as large as 37,549 ha, of which 33,715 ha (90%) is within Yang County (the remaining 10% belongs to Chenggu County, Shaanxi Province). Most of the area of the nature reserve is located in hilly areas at an altitude of 500-1,000 m.

The reserve has 13 towns/villages and 99 administrative villages with 77,612 people in 24,696 households as of 2003, of whom 95% are engaged in agriculture. As will be described in more detail below, this requires agricultural ecosystems, including wetland fields, that play a significant role as the habitat of the Crested Ibis, and hence also requires the understanding and cooperation of the local residents who use the agricultural ecosystem (Su and Kawai, 2004). Thus, the nature reserve adopted a “community co-management” system promoted by The State Forestry Administration of China, in which it is jointly operated and managed with the local residents, and established a community co-management committee in Yang zhou zhen in 2003 (Su and Kawai, 2004).