Striving for the better standards of living

This work aims to answer the following research question: To what extent does community-based ecotourism contribute to securing people's livelihoods and improving local standards of living in rural poverty-stricken areas around Three Parallel Rivers? To answer this question, the author analyses community-based ecotourism through the notions of community participation and social capital, advocated by both international and Chinese development experts as a form of self-empowerment and the basis of sustainable development, and integrated in particular ways in the new policy of New Socialist Countryside Construction the Chinese government initiated in 2006. Ecotourism understood in the particular Chinese terms that the author identifies in her research, has been the central agenda for developing rural communities in the minority areas of Yunnan Province. The book thus focusses on analysing the links between specific aspects of the larger New Socialist Countryside Contruction policy in ten villages in Yunnan Province where ecotourism is promoted, the forms of community participation practiced, and the larger political context that shapes community interest itself.