Ecosystem Protection in China: A New Paradigm under Ecological Civilization

Abstract This paper establishes a theoretical framework to study the fundamental changes in the concept and mechanism of China’s ecosystem protection under the paradigm of ecological civilization, and its major implications for global sustainable development. We first examine the damage to the ecosystem of the standard economic growth model, and provide empirical evidence that the traditional ecosystem protection paradigm based on the concept of industrial civilization has been unable to curb serious ecological degradation on a global scale. We then build a new theoretical model to reveal China’s new ecosystem protection paradigm based on the concept of ecological civilization, and analyze how it forms a mutually beneficial relationship with economic development by changing the content and mechanism of economic growth. Furthermore, we conduct an empirical analysis of the paradigm shift of China’s ecosystem protection and show that there is a significant synergy between China’s ecological conservation and economic development under the new paradigm. Finally, we use a game theory model to reveal the significant implications of China’s new ecosystem conservation paradigm for global ecological protection, especially for the realization of the expected goals of the post-2020 global biodiversity framework.