Conservation and Recreation in Protected Areas

Yun Ma is a lecturer in administrative law at the Law School of China University of Political Science and Law (CUPL), Beijing, China. She graduated cum laude from the Law School of CUPL with the bachelor’s degree in law, and obtained a ‘free pass’ to the master studies in constitutional and administrative law at CUPL. Funded by the China Scholarship Council, she worked as a PhD candidate at the Department of Constitutional and Administrative Law and Erasmus China Law Center at the Erasmus School of Law since September 2011 and obtained her doctoral degree in 2015. She worked as a visiting researcher at Maurer School of Law of Indiana University and S.J.Quinney College of Law of University of Utah in the United States between September 2013 and February 2014. Her research interests include administrative law, natural resources law and environmental governance. She has authored and co-authored articles and book chapters on administrative litigation, private land conservation, national parks and other topics.

• Preface; Introduction. Part I Conflicts in Theory: Concepts, Institutions and Rationale: Schemes of protected areas: historical, structural and institutional perspectives; Resolving conflicts in protected areas: rationale, principles and the institutional approach. Part II Country Studies - United States: The legal framework of protected areas in the United States; The formation of conflicts in public land designation and management; Resolution of conflicts in legislation and policies: assessing the legal foundations; Resolution of conflicts: a judicial perspective. Part III Country Studies - China: The legislative and policy frameworks of protected areas in China; The formation of conflicts in the designation and management of protected areas in China; The resolution of conflicts in law and practice in China; Pudacuo National Park and beyond in Yunnan Province: national parks envisioned and national parks in practice; Comparative observations, conclusions and recommendations; Appendices; Bibliography; Index.

‘Yun Ma’s fascinating book examines how China and the United States manage national parks and other protected areas. The study of China is especially important because the various classes of protected areas there are relatively new and little understood. Her account of traveling to southwestern China to visit Pudacuo National Park, the country’s first, demonstrates how even local officials often know far less about such protected areas than we would expect.’John C. Nagle, University of Notre Dame, USA‘This important comparative study of how US and Chinese legal institutions address national park recreation controversies offers valuable insights into the role law, politics, and economics play in shaping each nation’s nature conservation policies, while providing a realistic assessment of the many challenges park managers face in both countries.’Robert B. Keiter, University of Utah, USA and author of To Conserve Unimpaired: The Evolution of the National Park Idea‘The "Protected Area" is a very important field of environmental law in China, but one somehow lacking due consideration. This book presents one of the earliest comprehensive studies on protected areas from a legal perspective. By comparing the situation in China with that in the US, the author provides many constructive suggestions for improving Chinese law.’Tianbao Qin, Wuhan University, China‘This book is a remarkable achievement in enhancing our understanding of how the law can be instrumental in conserving natural beauty. Yun Ma’s in-depth study of two large jurisdictions, China and the US, convincingly demonstrates that this can be achieved by an aggregation of various branches of law, not just environmental law but also administrative law, criminal law, property law and international law.’Nico Schrijver, Leiden University, The Netherlands