Over the past five years, the pilot establishment of national parks in China has been a major event in global biodiversity conservation. The national parks under construction and proposed account for nearly 1% of the land area, and their social impacts have attracted the attention of researchers and managers. However, most of the research has a focus on the effects of protection, and national parks do not have a sufficient understanding of the social impacts and perceptions of the local residents. This research, taking Nanling National Park in Guangdong Province as the case, used the social impact assessment research framework to explore the perceptions and support of local people for the creation of national parks. Through questionnaires and in-depth interviews, the findings were first that most residents expressed a low awareness of Nanling National Park’s development, but they still expressed conditional support. Second, ethnic minorities and less educated residents did not support the creation of national parks. Perceptions of ecological, economic, political, and cultural impacts affected whether residents supported the construction of national parks. In the initial stages of national park development, governmental administrative departments should reduce the negative impacts of national park construction by strengthening the publicity and awareness building, formulating appropriate policy guidance for different needs, and giving local residents the right to express their views, so as to enhance resident support for national park projects.
Limited by China’s mixed land ownership model, which is divided into collective and state ownership, national parks’ strict ecological protection measures of restricting land use patterns and intensity are subject to the decisions made by collective landowners and contract operators, namely, rural households in national park communities. The disposition and intention of community farmers regarding collective land ownership is related to the nature conservation effect of the national park. In the context of national park land functions for ecological conservation, environmental education, leisure and recreation, scientific research, and “nest eggs” (basic living guarantees), the research on the influencing factors of farmers’ intentions to reallocate their land (expropriated or transferred) will provide a basis for a National Parks Administration (NPA) to develop supporting policies for collective land reallocation in different functional zones and to prevent community conflicts. The research took Shennongjia National Park as an example and, combined with literature analysis, used the Structural Equation Model (SEM) to explore the influencing factors of community farmers’ land reallocation intentions and drew the following conclusions: farmers’ intentions to leave their land for nature conservation purposes and for urbanization purposes are different. In the five land function situations above, farmers’ perceptions of land function in national parks did not directly affect their land reallocation intentions, while their trust in the land management ability of NPA was a complete mediator. Farmers’ preferences for the economic value of land had no significant moderating effect on land reallocation intentions. Farmers’ characteristics have a moderating effect on different land function situation models. Older and less educated farmers are more likely to receive livelihood compensation rather than monetary compensation after leaving their land. Therefore, some management suggestions are put forward, such as strengthening the capacity for building national park land and other natural resources management, adapting to the collective land policy in different function zones, and paying attention to the livelihood compensation of community farmers after they leave the land.