The Impact of Rural Residents' Environmental Change Perception on Biodiversity Conservation Behavior: An Empirical Study Based on Menyuan County in Qinghai

Rural areas play a crucial role in biodiversity conservation. The growing tension between ecological protection and the developmental demands of rural residents necessitates a nuanced understanding of environmental perception within human-land relationships. This study, conducted in Menyuan County, Qinghai Province, examines how rural inhabitants' perceptions of their natural, communal, productive, and scenic environments influence their ecological behaviors and sustainable agricultural practices. A structural equation model was constructed to link environmental change perception with biodiversity conservation behaviors, testing several hypotheses. Results demonstrate that: (1) The perception of the productive environment among rural residents significantly and positively influenced ecological protection behavior and the adoption of green agriculture practices. Specifically, enhancing residents' awareness of environment could encourage proactive ecological conservation efforts, with residents willing to accept certain economic trade-offs in agricultural practices. (2) Rural residents' perception of the natural environment had a significantly positive impact on their perception of the community environment, which subsequently strengthened productive environment perception. (3) Perception of the scenic environment indirectly enhanced ecological conservation behaviors through household livelihood adaptation. The residents' stronger perception of the scenic environment in rural tourism areas promoted both tourism-oriented livelihood diversification and ecological conservation practices. Consequently, this study provides theoretical references and practical guidance for future rural biodiversity conservation efforts in terms of community environmental enhancement, productive environment improvement, and biodiversity education initiatives.