Mechanisms Underlying the “Poverty-Relief Enclave” Model in Forest Regions: A Quadripartite Evolutionary Game Approach

Against the backdrop of increasingly stringent natural forest protection and comprehensive logging bans, forest-dependent regions confront structural constraints between ecological conservation and economic development, necessitating the exploration of alternative livelihood pathways and collaborative governance mechanisms. As a cross-regional institutional synergy arrangement, the “Poverty-Relief Enclave” model integrates factor resources and industrial platforms, thereby offering a new trajectory for income source transformation and industrial succession in forest areas. However, its operational process entails multi-agent interactions and complex incentive and constraint relationships, and the stability of cooperation still warrants systematic investigation. In light of this, this paper constructs a quadripartite evolutionary game model encompassing the host government, the home government, the forest region industrial alliance, and the village collective. Within a bounded rationality and dynamic evolutionary framework, it analyzes the multi-agent strategic evolution process and its stability conditions. The findings reveal that the “Poverty-Relief Enclave” model in forest regions does not spontaneously converge to a high-level cooperative state; rather, three types of stable equilibria may emerge under varying cost–benefit structures and institutional incentives. An ideal state of multi-agent synergy is attainable only under conditions of incentive compatibility. Coordinated supervision by both governments, incentives for high-quality production by industrial entities, and guaranteed participation of village collectives are identified as pivotal factors shaping cooperation stability. The cross-regional institutional arrangement facilitating the “outward shift of income sources” helps alleviate pressure on direct forest resource utilization and fortifies the institutional enforcement foundation through grassroots participation mechanisms. From the perspectives of forest governance and multi-agent collaboration, this study unveils the intrinsic operating mechanism of the “Poverty-Relief Enclave” model in forest regions, thereby furnishing a theoretical underpinning for sustainable transformation and institutional innovation in forest-dependent areas.