Abstract: Eco-museum, a concept that was firstly introduced in the 1970s, is an emerging apparatus for preserving ethnic groups’ cultural heritages through living form of exhibition. The fundamental rationales of eco-museum lie in the theoretical foundation of ecology discipline. It is exercised through the display of a specific group’s entire cultural attributes within a specific geographical location. Eco-museum is distinctively different from its conventional counterparts not only for its visual forms but also for its predominately community-based and locality-driven approach and for its abilities to preserve authenticity locally through a “living” style of display. This paper is an exploratory study discussing the application of eco-museum in a Miao minority village in Suoga, Guizhou, China. It provides the background of the establishment of Suoga Eco-museum and identifies the opportunities and impacts that eco-museum presents to the minority villagers. It also examines problems associated with the development of an eco-museum: the search of local eco-museum definition, staged performance for tourism versus heritage preservation for sustainable development, and the adequate environmental capacity to accommodate tourist demands，and so on.

Key words: eco-museum