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Abstract Mountainous ethnic tourism lands are important social-ecological system types. With tourism as the main disturbance factor, the theory of social-ecological system resilience provides a new way to realize the sustainable development of ethno-tourism in mountainous areas. This study divides the social-ecological system into social, economic, and ecological subsystems. It constructs an evaluation index system to assess the resilience of ethnic tourism destinations in mountainous areas, considering vulnerability and adaptability. We investigate 64 counties in the Wuling Mountain area and use set-pair analysis to assess the resilience index of the social-ecological system from 2000 to 2020 and reveal the temporal and spatial characteristics. Obstacle degree models and a genetic algorithm-back propagation neural network are utilized to determine the influencing factors and predict future development trends. The following results were obtained: (1) Temporally, the resilience index shows a steady upward trend, reaching a moderate level. The resilience of the social subsystem fluctuates and rises; the economic subsystem exhibits slow, fast, and slow growth rates with occasional abrupt changes; and the ecological subsystem demonstrates a stable, slightly increasing trend. (2) Spatially, the resilience index is high at the edges and low in the central area, exhibiting a concave distribution. Most counties have moderate or higher resilience. The social and ecological subsystems have low resilience in the south and high resilience in the north. The resilience of the economic subsystem is high at the edges and low in the central area. (3) On the distribution of major obstacle factors, the first two are similar at the county level, and the last three are significantly different. The similarity of the barrier factors is related to the degree of regional proximity of the county, and overall, the similarity is decreasing from north to south and from west to east in the distribution pattern within the area. and to a certain extent, it is affected by terrain and geomorphology. (4) The spatial distribution of the resilience index is similar in 2025 and 2030. The index decreases slightly and then increases annually, with a lower growth rate in the south than in the north. Lower values occur in the northern and southwestern parts, whereas higher values are observed around high-value areas. The region as a whole will develop in a coordinated and integrated manner in the future.

Rural social-ecological systems have been significantly impacted by the development of rural tourism, creating substantial challenges for the synergistic development of rural ecological restoration and agricultural workers’ household livelihoods. In alignment with the United Nations Decade on Ecosystem Restoration action plan, it is crucial to understand the ecological resilience of tourism villages from the perspective of farmers to achieve sustainable development. Questionnaires and semi-structured interviews were conducted in this study to gather livelihood data from farmers in tourism villages in Xiangxi, China, a region primarily inhabited by ethnic minorities. A measurement index system for the ecological resilience of rural tourism was constructed based on the three dimensions: pressure, state, and response. A comprehensive index method was employed for quantitative evaluation, and influencing factors were analyzed using an obstacle model. The results show that farmers’ livelihoods can be divided into four types: tourism-led, labor-led, agriculture-led, and part-time tourism-based. Their ecological resilience indices are 0.4516, 0.4177, 0.4001, and 0.4590, respectively, representing an overall intermediate level. There are differences in various indices for different livelihood types, with the highest stress index observed in labor-led farmers (0.1655), the highest state index in agriculture-led farming households (0.1585), and the highest response index in tourism-led farming households (0.1766). Common obstacles to the ecological resilience of farmers and their villages include the number of family members engaged in tourism work, the area of forest land, and the farmers’ understanding of ecological policies affecting them. Additionally, core family members’ education levels and the area of homesteads emerged as important obstacle factors. Based on these research findings, recommendations are proposed to enhance the ecological resilience of rural farmer households in the tourism villages of ethnic minority areas. The aim is to provide valuable case studies for promoting the sustainable development of rural tourism in underdeveloped regions worldwide.

The ecological problems of tourism villages in the context of globalization cannot be ignored. Rural tourism has destroyed the rural ecological environment, and it is of great significance to explore the ecological resilience of tourism villages to achieve sustainable development. This study introduces an analytical framework with which to assess the ecological resilience of rural tourism locales, focusing on micro-level perspectives involving communities and farmers. Ecosystem service values and a comprehensive index are utilized as proxies to characterize ecological resilience, and its evolutionary characteristics and mechanisms are investigated. The results are as follows. (1) From the community perspective, rural land use has changed significantly from the agricultural function to the tourism compound function. During this transition, the ecological resilience index has decreased by 2.05 × 10 ^6 . (2) From the perspective of farmers, the rural ecological resilience index and various dimensional indices have altogether increased. Notably, the transformation capability index has increased by 30.34%, the interference capability index has increased by 21.78%, and the response capability index has increased by 14.72%. The ecological resilience indices for different livelihood types, from highest to lowest, are ranked as follows: tourism-oriented farmers (0.4412), tourism-participating farmers (0.4274), and migrant-oriented farmers (0.4066). (3) Socio-economic factors and farmers’ livelihoods lead to the imbalance of the rural social ecosystem. The adaptive transformation of tourism villages has facilitated the dynamic evolution of ecological resilience. This study contributes to the enrichment of ecological resilience research perspectives and may offer valuable insights for the sustainable development of tourism villages in similarly developing countries around the world.

Ecocultural tourism plays an crucial role in promoting poverty reduction and farmers’ sustainable livelihood enhancement worldwide, which has attracted strong attention from scholars and society. However, the impact of ecological and cultural capital of farmers’ sustainable livelihoods have not been yet fully investigated. This paper modifies the sustainable livelihoods framework (SLF) and emphasizes the effects of ecological and cultural capital on farmers’ sustainable livelihoods. The modified SLF can be used as a possible theoretical model to comprehensively characterize farmers’ sustainable livelihoods in tourism destinations with rich ecological and cultural resources. By constructing an evaluation index system, principle component analysis and multiple linear regression are used to analyze the types and response levels of farmers’ sustainable livelihoods to ecocultural tourism and determine the factors influencing this response. The results show that farmers’ sustainable livelihood responses to ecocultural tourism can be classified into six types. The overall response values are low, and the responses are ranked by the degree of response in descending order as complete response, balanced development, cultural network, ecology-dominant, developmental delay, and resource advantage response. Farmers’ sustainable livelihoods respond strongly to cultural capital and ecological capital factors and relatively weakly to physical, natural, social, financial, and labor capital. Five main factors that influence farmers’ sustainable livelihood responses are then identified. Finally, strategies and suggestions for livelihood transformation, strategy selection, and improvement are proposed. This study provides case study examples for promoting the sustainable development of ecocultural tourism sites and improving farmers’ livelihoods in China and worldwide.