The fierce conflict between human livelihood and mountain forest resource conservation is considered as a world problem that has been threatening human being’s sustainability. Mountain forests can be sustainably managed through the approaches that recognize the linkages between ecosystem and societal processes. Over last decades, interdisciplinary research has received an extensive concern that integrates natural and social science. However, in China, the interdisciplinary research that aims to solve sustainability problems remains undeveloped. .The Qilian Mountain Region (QMR), Gansu Province, offers a typical example of fierce competition between local community development and forest resource conservation. Due to the unique combination of high mountains, Gobi deserts and oases in the region, the sensitivity and fragility of ecosystem has emerged. In addition, global warming and anthropogenic effects have seriously affected the resilience and function of the forest ecosystems in the QMR. At the same time, local people’s livelihood has not been improved by overexploitation of forest resource. Therefore, it is a priority for forest managers to guarantee the balance between natural forest resource conservation and local community development in the QMR..This proposal takes the QMR as study area, adopts the Coupled Human and Natural Systems (CHANS) as theoretical basis, and uses multi-agent modeling as research tool. In this program, socioeconomic data and biophysical data will be collected from local government yearbook and on-site field survey. Multiple data analysis methods will be employed using integrated statistical analysis, landscape analysis and GIS spatial analysis. The specific objectives of this research are: 1) to explore the relationship between forest policy, household decision-making, land use/cover change and human livelihood, using a revised multi-agent model – the Qilian Mountain Region Land Use Dynamic Simulator (QMR-LUDAS) based on the existing LUDAS; 2) to construct an upgraded multi-agent model with more efficient appraisal system; 3) to strengthen the collaboration in social ecology between McGill University and Lanzhou University. .The program aims to provide forest managers with a decision support system for harmonizing the acute conflicts between local people’s livelihood and forest resource conservation. The multi-agent system (MAS) modeling would act as a decision-making platform to reveal the complexity of CHANS and supply a case study on interdisciplinary research. For the sake of reducing risks of ineffective forest protection policies, it could be expected to get the outcomes under different scenarios of local people’s activities and forest policies so that forest managers could adjust their policies to sustainably manage forest resources. By this research, the bilateral collaboration in social ecology between McGill University and Lanzhou University will also be achieved.