Climate change disproportionately affects natural resource-dependent communities in the ecologically vulnerable regions of western China. This study used the household livelihood vulnerability index under the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (HLV-IPCC) to assess vulnerability. Data were collected from 823 households in Ningxia, Gansu, Guangxi, and Yunnan provinces, these being ecologically vulnerable regions in China. With a composite HLVI-IPCC and multiple regression model, the factors that affect households’ adaptive capability to HLVI-IPCC was estimated. Results indicate that Ningxia is the most vulnerable community, while Guangxi is the least vulnerable community across all indices. Moreover, Gansu has the heaviest sensitivity and exposure to climate change, whereas Ningxia has the highest adaptive capability to climate change. In addition, the age of household head and distance of the home to the town center had significant negative impacts on households’ adaptive capacity to HLVI-IPCC. The results also suggest that the HLVI assessment can provide an effective tool for local authorities to formulate prioritizing strategies with promoting climate-resilient development and increasing long-term adaptive capacity.

Understanding rural households’ conservation attitudes is crucial to achieving biodiversity conservation effectiveness, and one underlying predictor of household conservation attitudes is social trust. This study examined the impact of rural households’ social trust on their ecological protection attitudes based on 922 rural household data around 13 giant panda nature reserves in Shaanxi Province and Sichuan Province, China. The results show that: (1) Social trust has a significant positive impact on rural households’ conservation attitudes. (2) Males’ ecological conservation attitudes are influenced by all the social trust variables, whereas females’ attitudes are influenced mainly by interpersonal trust (trust in neighbors and villagers). The conservation attitudes of households with higher education levels and higher family incomes are mainly affected by trust in government, while those with lower education levels and lower family incomes are more significantly affected by the trust in villagers and village cadres. The above conclusions are helpful to understand the influencing mechanism of rural households’ conservation attitudes and improve the protection effects of nature reserves.

Rural households have played an increasingly significant role in the conservation and restoration process of natural habitats. This paper explores rural households’ preference and willingness to pay for ecological restoration attributes in giant panda habitats using the discrete choice experiment (DCE). The DCE survey was conducted in and around giant panda habitats in Sichuan province with a sample size of 474. Using the mixed logit model, the results indicate that rural households have positive attitudes towards the improvement of ecological restoration functions, including forest vegetation restoration, biodiversity conservation, and giant panda corridor construction, but have a negative attitude towards payment, showing that rural households are inclined to pay less to gain better restoration outcomes. Among the ecological restoration attributes, forest vegetation restoration (4.44 RMB) wins the highest payment value, indicating households’ preferences and priorities of ecological restoration. In general, rural households’ willingness to pay could reach 34.28 RMB for the best choice option designed in DCE. This study emphasizes the awareness of payment among rural households to improve ecological restoration functions in giant panda habitats and indicates the importance of household participation in long-term adaptation and implementation of ecological conservation plans.

Facilitating the sustained and stable growth of farmers’ income is crucial for achieving sustainable development in forest regions. As an emerging driving force, the digital economy has demonstrated substantial potential in enhancing farmers’ income and promoting regional economic prosperity in forest areas. Based on survey data from 1043 households across 10 counties in Guizhou Province, China, this study empirically examined the direct and indirect effects of digital economy participation on income growth among farmers in forest regions. The findings revealed that, first, participation in the digital economy significantly contributed to income growth for these households. This effect remained robust across various estimation methods, restricted sample tests, and when replacing dependent variables. Second, forestry management and its diversification played a mediating role in the relationship between digital economy participation and farmers’ income. Participation in the digital economy indirectly influenced income growth by fostering forestry management activities and their diversification. Third, the heterogeneity analysis indicated that digital economy participation had a significant positive impact on the income growth of pure farming households, part-time farming households, and households that had previously escaped poverty. This discovery underscored the unique role of the digital economy in alleviating poverty and preventing its recurrence. The conclusions of this study provide essential theoretical and practical guidance for empowering forestry development through the digital economy and advancing the digital transformation of the forestry industry. More critically, this research presents a novel pathway for the deep integration of the digital economy with forestry, jointly fostering income growth for farmers in forest regions, which holds significant implications for achieving rural sustainable development.

Community-based forest ecotourism is an important livelihood pathway for communities around protected forests, but household agritourism operators often face ecological regulations, seasonal demand and heterogeneous tourist expectations. These conditions increase information asymmetry and make service matching difficult. This study examines how two-way information disclosure affects business performance in community-based forest ecotourism. Drawing on social penetration theory, we test a chained mechanism linking two-way information disclosure to operational performance. Based on 780 valid questionnaires from agritourism operators and core family managers around Giant Panda National Park, China, this study measures information disclosure practices, service responsiveness, operator-side perceptions of tourist responses and self-reported business performance. The results show that seller- and buyer-side information disclosure significantly enhance perceived identification. Seller information disclosure has relatively stable effects on customer orientation, perceived quality and operational performance, whereas buyer information disclosure mainly works through perceived identification. Perceived quality, perceived value and satisfaction act as partial transmission channels. Heterogeneity analysis shows stronger effects among low-income and newly established operators. The findings provide micro-level evidence for reducing expectation mismatch and strengthening sustainable livelihood capacity in forest protected-area communities.