瑋佳-[Oral]The effect of land use regulations on ecological habitat

Although there are a lot of guidelines for sustainable land use, the key factor determining the land use is the legal regulations. Furthermore, people always want to ensure the ecological quality and the sustainability through legal regulations. Therefore, it is necessary to explore how legal regulations influence the ecological habitats through controlling land use.

In Taiwan, there are three land use systems: urban (which is in the scope of the urban plan), non-urban, and national park (which is in the scope of the national park plan). This study carries out a series of gradient analysis in several regions to examine the difference between land use systems. In order to measure the urbanization gradient of land cover types, we conduct the analysis along a wild-urban transect cutting across the regions we select. The areas of artificial pavement and buildings are computed using an overlapping moving window across the transect with FRAGSTATS.

The main findings of the analysis include two dimensions of legal regulations: the legal system and the degree of wild conservation. First, the buffer zone does not exist, unless there are non-urban lands between the urban and the wild. Second, the national park provides the best protection for the wild. There is a protected zone in urban plan, but it does not maintain a good quality as other legal systems. The results could be applied to suggest the principles of land use legislation.

　　

瑋佳-[Poster]Public and professional perspectives on national parks

In recent years, the research related to protected areas has focused on the interaction between people and the environment. Ecologists and natural resource managers in public and private sectors want to generate people’s interest in the natural environment and environmental problems. However, scant literature mentions the gaps between ideal and practical conditions. Considering public involvement, this study examined issues facing national parks, carrying out a quantitative analysis to discuss the differences between public and professional perspectives for national parks, including their understanding, judgment, and expectations.

As environmental ethics and standards have shaped common sense, interviews might lead to some standard answers. In order to prevent interview bias, this study collected blog articles and online news items to represent public viewpoints. Furthermore, experts’ and scholars’ comments in official judgments and discussion meetings were recorded to represent professional viewpoints.

The analysis of public viewpoints determined that primary attitudes toward national parks included four paradigms: environmental ethics, environmental challenges, environmental education, and environmental experience. People connect with environmental education through on-site visits, making it closely relative to environmental experience. The context suggests that national parks currently provide unsatisfying experiences for people except those concerned with environmental challenges. For people concerned with environmental ethics, the conservation of natural and cultural resources is not sufficient as people concerned with environmental experiences hope to gain more comfort and convenience, which significantly counters professional viewpoints. The comprehensive analysis not only defined the functions of national parks, but also suggested a development policy.