Payment for forest ecosystem services (PFES) policy is a prevalent strategy designed to establish a marketplace where users compensate providers for forest ecosystem services. This research endeavours to scrutinise the impact of PFES on households’ perceptions of forest values and their behaviour towards forest conservation, in conjunction with their socio-economic circumstances and their communal involvement in forest management. By incorporating the social-ecological system framework and the theory of human behaviours in environmental conservation, this study employs a structural equations model to analyse the factors influencing individuals’ perceptions and behaviours towards forest conservation. The findings indicate that the payment of PFES significantly increases forest protection behaviour at the household level and has achieved partial success in activating community mechanisms to guide human behaviour towards forest conservation. Furthermore, it has effectively leveraged the role of state-led social organisations to alter local individuals’ perceptions and behaviours towards forest protection.

Analyzing ecosystem service values (ESV) is crucial for achieving sustainable development. The main objective of this study was to assess the ecosystem services of the Cisadane watershed in Indonesia, with specific goals: (i) examining the spatiotemporal dynamics of ESV using multi-year land use and land cover (LULC) data from 2000 to 2021, (ii) exploring trade-offs and synergies among various ecosystem services, and (iii) investigating the sensitivity of ESV to changes in LULC. The results unveiled a significant decrease in forested areas (21.2%) and rice fields (10.2%), leading to a decline in ESV of $196.37 billion (33.17%) from 2010 to 2021. Throughout the period from 2000 to 2021, interactions between ESV were mainly synergistic. Projected from the baseline year (2021), the decline in ESV is expected to persist, ranging from $24.78 billion to $124.28 million by 2030 and from $45.78 billion to $124.28 million by 2050. The total estimated ecosystem values exhibited an inelastic response in terms of ecosystem value coefficients. The study also emphasizes an inelastic response in total estimated ESV coefficient concerning ecosystem value coefficients. These findings underscore the urgent need for targeted conservation efforts and sustainable land management practices to mitigate the further decline in ecosystem services and safeguard the long-term well-being of the Cisadane watershed and its inhabitants.

The national park with Chinese characteristics is the highest level of protection of a kind of natural protection, its establishment marks the park will implement the strictest ecological protection means. It is of great value to construct the utilization system of national park resources under the new natural protected area system in the new era to avoid the misunderstanding of “ecological protection only” and explore how to carry out the sustainable utilization of resources in the reform of national park system and mechanism. According to the analytic hierarchy process (AHP) and Delphi method, the evaluation framework, indicators, reference standards and weights of resource utilization under the national park system were determined in combination with the requirements of constructing the protected natural area system and the total value of resource ecosystem services (including harvest value, existence value and future value). Based on the application research of Bawangling zone of Hainan Tropical Rainforest National Park, the optimal resource utilization system in the future was proposed, and two optimization strategies of ecological adjustment of resource utilization system and construction of suitable resource utilization system were put forward.