Ecotourism is a significant approach for the protective development of nature reserves. Through analyzing the necessity of developing ecotourism, learning from the successful ecotourism development cases of nature reserves in China and abroad, the authors proposed a new Nature Reserve Protective Tourism Exploring Mode (NRPTEM) with the integration of "protection, development and management", such a mode contains 3 systems (protection, development and management), 12 projects (biodiversity protection, geological remains protection, protection of human ecology, environment monitoring, scientific planning, product development, market expansion, facility construction, capacity building, community co-management, environment education and management innovation) as well as human (a critical structural factor). The relationship between these items in the complicated process of ecotourism development of nature reserves was elaborated, and the dominant role of human factors in the 3 systems was also put forward.