Abstract: Traditional indigenous culture has important contributions to biodiversity conservation. To explore the factors affecting wildlife conservation awareness of the indigenous people, we used a semi-structured interview method to investigate age, education level, income level, traditional cultural belief, and conservation awareness (including conservation knowledge, and conservation attitude and behavior) of indigenous people in seven communities living in Leigongshan National Nature Reserve in Guizhou Province, China, between 2018 and 2019. We collected a total of 72 valid questionnaires. The results showed that conservation knowledge of indigenous people mainly depended on their education level. There were no significant relationships of conservation knowledge with age, income level, and traditional cultural belief. Conservation attitude and behavior of indigenous people was not significantly affected by their ages, traditional cultural belief or conservation knowledge, but income level could partly predict the variation in conservation attitude and behavior. The results suggested that education level and income level were the most important factors affecting the conservation awareness of indigenous people. However, the conservation knowledge of indigenous people would not be well transformed into conservation behavior. To promote the effectiveness of nature reserve management, we recommend that managers should promote the cultural and educational level of indigenous people, carry out various propaganda campaigns, encourage the inheritance and innovation of excellent traditional culture, and support sustainable economic development, to mobilize indigenous people to engage in conservation.

Key words: nature reserve, indigenous people, conservation knowledge, conservation attitude and behavior, education level, income level.