Environmental Protection and Sustainable Development in Ecological Functional Zones

Abstract In order to explore the impact of ecological environmental protection measures on ecological functional zones and promote the sustainable development of ecology, the ecological functional zone of a hilly region in south China is taken as the research object in this study. Combined with the data of ecological environment and land use type in the past ten years, the ecological function index (water conservation index), ecological structure status (forest coverage, grassland coverage, and ratio of wetland in waters), and ecological stress situation (ratio of cultivated land to construction land) are analyzed to reflect the ecological status of ecological functional zones. The results show that in the past ten years, the water conservation index and forest coverage rate in the studied area have been improved significantly, and the ecological condition has become better, which indicates that ecological protection measures such as returning farmland to forest and closing mountains for forest cultivation can improve the ecological environment of ecological functional zones and contribute to the sustainable development of ecology.