Abstract
Forest ecological products (FEPs) play an increasingly important role in promoting low-carbon development, rural revitalization, and ecological sustainability. However, the mechanisms through which their ecological value is transformed into economic value remain insufficiently understood. Drawing on capital circulation theory, this study develops an analytical framework for the value realization of FEPs. Using 43 publicly available official cases in China, the study evaluates the effectiveness of value realization through a coupling coordination model and employs fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA) to identify the configurational paths leading to high-level value realization. The results indicate that the sampled regions have achieved initial coordination between ecological protection and economic development, although significant regional disparities remain, particularly between eastern and western China. High-level value realization is driven by multiple configurational paths rather than a single dominant factor, highlighting the joint effects of capital investment, value enhancement, institutional arrangements, and market mechanisms. However, existing value realization models remain insufficiently diversified and generally lack effective benefit-regulation mechanisms to sustain long-term value creation. These findings extend capital circulation theory to the context of FEPs and provide practical implications for improving institutional arrangements, strengthening regional coordination, and developing diversified value realization paths.
Subjects
- Ecology
- Environmental sciences
- Environmental social sciences
Funding
This research was funded by the major grant from the National Social Science Fund (24&ZD108) and the Doctoral Support Program of Fujian Provincial Social Science Fund (FJ2025BF045).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Institutional review board
This study obtained informed consent for publication from all identifiable human participants.
Additional information
Publisher’s note
Springer Nature remains neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.
Rights and permissions
Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License, which permits any non-commercial use, sharing, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if you modified the licensed material. You do not have permission under this licence to share adapted material derived from this article or parts of it. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/.
Reprints and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Zhu, X., Wang, W., Shi, Q. et al. Driving mechanisms of forest ecological product value realization using fsQCA analysis of 43 cases in China.
Sci Rep (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-63739-x
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-026-63739-x
Keywords
- Forest ecological products
- Value realization
- Capital circulation theory
- Driving factors
- Fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis (fsQCA)
Source: Ecology - nature.com
