Can Environmental Protection in Ecological Functional Zones Break Free from the Constraints of Focusing Just on Economic Benefits? — A Case Study of the Plateau Ecological Zone’s Tiamitcheen

Following the 2015 publication and revision of the 2008 National Ecological Functional Division, China, in 2017, added 240 counties (cities, districts, and banners) to its national key ecological functional zone system. Ecological functional zones, in practice, are often caught in a dilemma between environmental protection and economic development, with actions aimed at the promotion of locally-based economic advances frequently conflicting with the goals of ecological functional divisions. To investigate this dilemma, the paper selected Tiamitcheen County in the Qinghai–Tibet Plateau, a key ecological function zone, as the site for a field investigation, case study. The primary methodologies applied in this study included a questionnaire survey and in-depth interviews. Based on the observation of three main reasons for the dilemma between environmental protection and economic development, the author proposed that ecological functional zones should be further subdivided based on the National Ecological Functional Division according to the zones’ respective characteristics at the local level. More efforts should also go into better specifying the scope of ecological “red lines”, and to the demarcation of the boundaries of ecological functional core zones, buffer zones, and experimental zones. This would help in the formulation of local development planning, while at the same time increasing the support directed to ecological protection zones. In addition, “differentiated” and “greening” zoning assessment mechanisms should also be fully implemented, whereby different assessment factors and weights are established according to the characteristics of the different functional zones. An expanded array of economic indicators should also be delineated, which more specifically indicates the differences between ecological functional zones and other functional zones. This would, via a “differentiated” and “green” assessment system, help to ease the conflicts arising between local governments’ efforts at both economic promotion and ecological protection. Within ecological functional zones, it would also encourage local governments to break through the need to adhere strictly to efforts at economic promotion so as to ensure ecological security.