TROPICAL GEOGRAPHY ›› 2016, Vol. 36 ›› Issue (4): 532-538.doi: 10.13284/j.cnki.rddl.002867

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Analysis on the Sense of Place and Rice Terrace Protection in the World Heritage Site of the Honghe Hani Rice Terraces

HUA Honglian1,2,ZHOU Shangyi2,JIAO Yuanmei1a,WANG Mei1a,HU Zhixin1a   

  1. (1.a.School of Tourism and Geographical Science,;b.Collaborative Innovation Center for Geopolitical Setting of Southwest China and Borderland development,Yunnan Normal University,Kunming 650500,China;2.School of Geography, Beijing Normal University,Beijing 100875,China)
  • Received:2015-12-31 Online:2016-07-05 Published:2016-07-05

Abstract:

There is growing concern about the role of sense of place in the process of heritage protection, most of the existing literatures focus on the personal sense of place and the effects on heritage protection, but think little about the role of natural and social environment in the formation of sense of place. Based on the findings in some international literatures and the characteristics of the human-environment relationship of Hani Rice Terraces, this research constructed a Structural Equation Model (SEM) that composed of four variables - nature bonding, social bonding, sense of place and awareness of terrace protection, trying to find the interaction between the sense of place and the other three variables. The results show that the connectedness with nature, nature attachment, the kinship, neighborhood, and activities in community have significant effect on sense of place, and there is a positive correlation between sense of place and awareness of terrace protection. In addition, social boding is also a direct and significant contributor to awareness of terrace protection. The results further validate that sense of place has positive influence on environmental concern and support the assumption which supposes that the intrinsic characteristics of a place and the bonding between people and those characteristics play an important role in forming sense of place. According to these results, we consider that traditional and important festivals should be taken to reinforce the traditional organization mode in community society and the traditional system of natural resource management and allocation should be cemented, so as to enhance the internal motivation for Hani Rice Terraces conservation.

Key words: the Hani Rice Terraces, sense of place, awareness of terrace protection, local residents