Cultivating cooperation: Empowerment, redistribution, and network dynamics in sustainable coffee agro-tourism...

The escalating ecological pressures from tourism in protected landscapes necessitate innovative governance models that harmonize stakeholder interests with environmental sustainability. This study analyzed multi-stakeholder cooperation in ecological governance, focusing on the Lujiangba Coffee Planting Base in Yunnan, China. Key findings reveal that: (1) Landscape empowerment amplifies positive externalities, with cooperative density reaching high levle of participation at lower benefit thresholds compared to non-empowered scenarios requiring unrealistically high thresholds; (2) A threshold-based redistribution mechanism (Scenario 2) outperforms conventional public goods models (Scenario 1), achieving stable cooperation when aggregate benefits surpass a moderate threshold; (3) Redistribution proportion and benefit growth exhibit synergistic effects; and (4) methodologically, coupling linear regression with network evolutionary games captures multi-scale governance dynamics, bridging micro-level psychology and macro-level systemic interactions. Policy recommendations advocate for institutionalizing redistribution frameworks with calibrated thresholds, formalizing tourism attraction rights, and leveraging small-world networks for decentralized governance.