China’s central government has issued several governance policies for protected areas since 2015. Some of these affected the use of natural resources by the farmers living in protected areas. Tourism is an important source of income for farmers around such areas. Based on the survey data of 1,028 farmer households, this study use propensity score matching (PSM) method to solve the samples selection bias and improve the accuracy of evaluation. For both the vertical and horizontal, this study explores the changes in the impact of tourism on farmers’ household income under regulatory policies. Longitudinally, before the introduction of these policies, the income effect of tourism on the per capita net income of households was about 49.21%, while this percentage dropped to 41.36% after their introduction. Horizontally, before these policies were implemented, the farmers involved in the protected areas’ tourism experienced 16.30% higher tourism income effect than those outside protected areas. Post implementation, the income effect of tourism in protected areas dropped by 9.83%. Empirical data based on the abovementioned were used to verify the inhibitory effect of the existing control policies on tourism in protected areas, and put forward the direction of policies reform in China or state governance-protected areas in other countries.

Against the global trend of increasing multiple participants involvement in protected areas management, the Chinese government has implemented a series of stricter policies since 2015. Tourism is an important alternative livelihood for farmers near protected areas. Based on survey data from 1,028 households in six protected areas, this study uses the propensity score matching (PSM) method to empirically examine the change effects of poverty reduction and conservation of farmers engaged in tourism under the influence of protected areas tourism management policies. The PSM method reduces sample self-selection bias and improves the accuracy of research conclusions. The findings reveal that irrespective of whether the areas are subjected to regulatory policies or not, tourism operations are significantly and inversely correlated with households’ multidimensional poverty index, and are notably positively correlated with their comprehensive conservation index. Consequently, tourism operations exhibit substantial poverty alleviation and protective effects. However, the current suite of protected areas control policies has curtailed the sustainable growth of tourism within these areas, resulting in 9.64% decrease in poverty alleviation effects and 10.33% decrease in protective effects derived from tourism operations. Despite their restrictive impacts on tourism, these policies have yielded some positive outcomes, fostering social equity within protected areas and catalyzing the transition from traditional livelihoods. Drawing upon these empirical findings, this study proposes recommendations and directions for fine-tuning China’s existing regulatory policies pertaining to tourism in protected areas.