Experiences and Insights from the Protection and Development of Overseas Ecological Conservation Areas: A Case Study of the Governance of the Lake Biwa Agricultural Ecosystem in Japan

The Fourth Plenary Session of the 20th Central Committee of the Communist Party of China made strategic plans for accelerating a comprehensive green transformation of economic and social development, explicitly calling for the strengthening of ecological security barriers and the enhancement of green development momentum. While domestic scholarship has yielded substantial achievements in areas such as ecological restoration and industrial transformation, attention to typical international governance cases remains insufficient. The agricultural ecosystem of Lake Biwa in Japan, after more than five decades of systematic remediation, has transformed from a notorious pollution case into an internationally recognized model of ecological governance. Its governance logic offers valuable insights for refining the protection and development pathways of China’ s ecological conservation areas. Employing a methodology that integrates diachronic process analysis with synchronic structural analysis, this study systematically distilled four core governance experiences from the Lake Biwa case: constructing a multi-stakeholder collaborative governance network under government guidance, establishing a synergistic legal framework linking national and local legislation, forming a governance model in which administrative incentives and market mechanisms complement each other, and developing long-term operational mechanisms that combine public awareness campaigns with ecological compensation. These experiences suggested that the development of China’ s ecological conservation areas should focus on strengthening multi-stakeholder governance structures, improving legal safeguards and incentive systems, promoting the value realization of ecological products, and cultivating public ecological awareness, thereby advancing a path of harmonious coexistence between humans and nature with distinctive Chinese characteristics through sustained investment and dynamic adaptation.