Reshaping Collective Capabilities for Capturing the Ecological Value of Coastal Wetlands: A Dynamic Evolutionary Game Approach

The sustainability of the ecological economy is a major challenge in the development of coastal wetland. While ecological products possess attributes of public goods, conflicts arise between the targets of environmental administration authorities and entities involved in resource development. Could innovative collective action enhance the sustainability of local ecological economy? Based on a field survey conducted in the Tiaozini Coastal Wetland Area, a “World Natural Heritage” site, in Dongtai County, Jiangsu Province, China, this paper employs a dynamic evolutionary game model to explore the action strategies of the local government, the “New Entity”, and villagers, in the process of ecological product development. The results show that when the local government releases regulations over ecological space, the New Entity tends to cooperate with villagers by forming an alternative organization, consisting of “rational collectives embedded in the local community”, which reshapes the collective capabilities in developing ecological products correspondingly. Driven by organizational innovation, the New Entity integrates the aquaculture and tourism industries to capture external profits and improve the fairness of profit redistribution, thereby becoming a functional entity with extraordinary organizational capabilities. Additionally, this entity collaborates with the facilitating government and the effected market. With defined boundaries, well-designed incentive mechanisms, including government support mechanisms, benefit sharing mechanisms, and organizational enhancement mechanisms, lead to synergy among economic growth, environmental protection, and ecological development.