Designing policies for the sustainable development of social-ecological systems with complex human–land relations requires integrated management and nexus thinking; China’s national parks are typical social-ecological systems. Ecosystem services and community livelihood are two essential components of sustainable management in the nature–community nexus (NCN). This study focuses on the Qianjiangyuan National Park Pilot Area in eastern China. Following a systems approach and integrating qualitative (causal analysis and systems but dynamic methods) and quantitative (InVEST model, Spearman’s correlation analysis, regression analysis, and multiple correspondence analysis) methods, we developed two causal mechanisms linking livelihood assets and ecosystem services, and verified them by exploring multi-dimensional linkages and revealing two types of NCNs. Results showed that the proportions of cropland and orchard areas have significant negative correlations with water and soil retention services, respectively, while forests significantly benefit both services. A positive NCN exists in areas where water and soil retention services perform well and the local community develops vibrantly with a considerable proportion of young, highly educated, or high-income (especially the income from secondary industries) residents. A negative NCN is seen in areas where the water and soil retention services values are low; a great many households do not have substantial income from secondary and tertiary industries, and few households have vast forest areas. These results can be used as scientific evidence for optimizing institutional arrangements and contributing to sustainable and harmonious development of national parks in China.

As a governance strategy, community participation is to implement the coordinated development of communities and protected areas. Therefore, the present study explored the community’s participation in the construction of Potatso National Park by means of a mixed-method approach that is derived from Ostrom’s (2007) socio-ecological systems and IUCN framework, calibrated to local residents’ self-assessments about the outcomes of community engagement on national park governance. From the six dimensions of ecological environment, livelihood assets, high-quality ecological products, management efficiency, social order and satisfaction that characterize the governance outcomes of protected areas, residents' attitudes and views on community participation in national park governance were analyzed. The results show that ecological environment has a positive impact on high-quality ecological products, on the contrary, livelihood assets are not significant; in addition, management efficiency has a significant positive impact on the ecological environment, livelihood assets, high-quality ecological products and social order. We concluded that community participation has a certain direct and indirect effect on the governance outcomes of Potatso National Park. It is suggested to continue to improve the community participation mechanism of residents from the two aspects of residents' subjective psychology and ecological compensation mechanism improvement. The transformation from the tourism development model to the national park is still in the process, and there existing quite a few problems. In the future, it is necessary to further realize the functions of national parks through institutional innovation, community participation capacity building, and the introduction of community institution participation.