All Eyes on Nature: National Park Pilots and Corporate Biodiversity Disclosure

ABSTRACT Biodiversity loss has emerged as a first‐order global risk, yet corporate biodiversity disclosure remains largely voluntary and weakly standardized. Exploiting the establishment of China's National Park Pilots (NPP) as a quasi‐natural experiment, this study examines how place‐based conservation mandates reshape corporate reporting incentives. Using 13 922 firm‐year observations from 2012 to 2023, we find that firms exposed to the NPP policy significantly increase biodiversity‐specific disclosure. Further analyses show that the response is biodiversity‐specific rather than a generic expansion in environmental reporting. Cross‐sectional analyses reveal that the effect is more pronounced in regions with stricter environmental regulation, among firms with greater dependence on government subsidies, and when public environmental attention is higher. Importantly, the disclosure response is accompanied by improvements in firm‐level green innovation and local avian richness. Overall, our evidence suggests that place‐based ecological governance can increase biodiversity‐related disclosure by heightening ecological visibility and stakeholder scrutiny.