Facing the demands of biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service improvement, the spatial pattern optimization of nature reserves has always been a research topic of interest. However, there remains a lack of methodological guidance in the planning of nature reserves and the surrounding areas. To promote the landscape sustainability of nature reserves, we constructed ecological security patterns (ESPs) with two scenarios as a case study in Wenchuan, China. In detail, the ecological sources were identified by ecosystem service evaluation, and the resistance surface was characterized by the habitat quality. The ecological corridors were determined based on circuit theory and the minimum cumulative resistance model. The ecological sources were mainly aggregated in the protected areas, with an area of more than 1000 ha; the high-resistance values were mainly in the area with dense roads or high elevation. There were 21 corridors in the scenario of only optimizing the nature reserve, while 31 corridors were identified when considering non-nature reserves, and the landscape connectivity was enhanced accordingly. The result supported constructing the ESPs between nature and non-nature reserves in Wenchuan to further protect pandas, and a methodological contribution was made to understand the differences of ESPs between them, thus supporting a methodological formulation of sustainable landscape patterns.

Human–wildlife conflict (HWC) has become a conservation focus for both protected area management and local communities in many parts of the world. The incidence and mediation of HWCs are rooted in coupled environmental and socioeconomic contexts. A systematic analysis of HWCs was undertaken in 2016 in the Wolong Nature Reserve located in Sichuan Province, southwestern China. Semi‐structured interviews were conducted with 201 local households to understand the occurrence of wildlife damage, the wildlife species involved, the typical losses incurred, and the mitigation measures employed. The results revealed that local HWC has increased rapidly in recent years due to effective biodiversity conservation and ecological restoration policies. Despite the widespread occurrence of HWCs, with nearly all respondents stating that they had suffered a financial loss, appropriate compensation schemes are lacking. Local respondents' expected compensation amount and style were investigated, and it was concluded that integrated compensation and community development plans are needed to mediate and resolve HWC. In particular, greater attention should be given to reduce local households' dependence on agriculture and transform local livelihood strategies to alternative economic activities not related to farming, such as ecotourism development and migrating employment.

Payments for ecosystem services (PES) are expected to promote ecological restoration while simultaneously improving human livelihoods. As an adaptive management tool, PES programs should be dynamic and adjusted according to changing natural and socio‐economic contexts. Taking the implementation of China's famous ecological restoration policy known as the Grain for Green Program (GGP) in the Wolong National Nature Reserve as an example, we analyzed changes in the livelihood capitals and strategies of local households that had participated in the GGP over a 10‐year period and discussed the implications of these changes for the next stage of the program's implementation. Data were collected from a locally implemented questionnaire in both 2004 and 2015. We found that local livelihood capitals and strategies had experienced dramatic change over the 10‐year period. Natural capital decreased and was unequally distributed among local respondents. In terms of financial capital, despite that agricultural and nonagricultural income increased, compensation from the GGP decreased and did not keep pace with increasing cost of cropland, household income and more broadly national economic development and inflation. Regarding human capital, the local labor force is facing huge transformational pressures. In particular, there is a increase in the supply of local labor force aged between 21 and 40 and the implications of this for the future of the GGP should be given more attention. The findings have demonstrated that: Some changes in participants’ livelihood were expected by the GGP but were not evenly distributed among the participants; and PES programs are embedded in changing and multi‐dimensional socio‐economic contexts, and so their design and implementation must be coordinated with other related policies if they are to achieve long‐term success.