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This paper examines how perceived social equity (distributional equity, procedural equity, and recognitional equity) affects acceptance of protected areas by local communities. We also consider the consequences of these perceptions on the behaviour of local people in relation to biodiversity conservation. Despite increasing importance being given to social issues in protected area management, there is limited evidence about the effect of perceived equity on local support for conservation initiatives. Questionnaires (mostly face-to-face interviews) were undertaken with 426 households living in and around the Giant Panda National Park, which lies across the Sichuan, Shanxi and Gansu provinces of China. Structural equation modelling revealed that local residents with positive perceptions of procedural and distributional equity were more willing to support conservation and engage in conservation behaviours. Surprisingly, perceived recognitional equity had no effect on acceptance and negatively impacted conservation behaviour. This highlights that, although it is essential to promote recognitional equity, the complexities around this must be considered further. The context (e.g. age, education, village of residence) moderates the relationships between procedural equity, distributional equity and local acceptance. We suggest that, in order to achieve better park-people relationships, in addition to addressing equity concerns, it is also necessary to implement supplementary measures, such as community co-management and benefit sharing with host communities. • Procedural and distributional equity facilitate acceptance of protected areas. • Recognitional equity has an intricate relationship with local support. • Perceived justice tends to be non-linear in relation to local support. • The location of communities influences local pro-conservation behaviours. • There is a need for a better understanding of the equity-acceptance relationship. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The productivity of natural ecosystem is closely related to many factors, such as biodiversity, functional traits of dominant species and soil property, thus is controlled by multivariable process. In this paper, the effects of species diversity, functional diversity, functional traits of dominant species and soil factors on community productivity of Lishan Mountain meadow in Shanxi province were studied by using structural equation model. The results showed that species diversity had no effect on productivity (γ=0.10, P=0.69), but the functional traits of dominant species (γ =0.61, P=0.00), functional diversity (γ =0.47, P=0.04) and soil factors (γ=0.34, P=0.02) had a direct impact on productivity, and soil factors had an indirect effect on productivity by the functional traits of the dominant species and functional diversity, with the indirect effect coefficients being 0.35 and 0.27, respectively. The functional traits of dominant species were the best predictors of productivity, followed by functional diversity and soil factors. Therefore, understanding the change of natural ecosystem productivity should be based on the introduction of multiple methods, with emphasis on the functional traits of dominant species. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]