Resumen de Processes driving the forest transition in China: perspectives from a livelihood-centres appproach with empirical focus on Daxi Village, Anji County
Summary The People¿s Republic of China (PRC) today confronts urgent environmental problems caused by demographic and consumption pressures which have historically led to forest loss and degradation. Millions have left poverty behind in China since 1978, although rising ecological footprints have caused widespread erosion, desertification, biodiversity decline, severe floods and draughts, connected both to deforestation and livelihood hardship. These inherited and new socio-ecological disturbances deeply moved Chinese society, whose growing environmental awareness resulted in the adoption of the New Forest Policy in the late 1990s. These `Six Key Forestry Programmes¿ (liu da linye zhongdian gongcheng) have permitted to halt deforestation thereby catalysing a forest transition (FT) in the PRC, moving from an initial long period of forest decline ¿ highly associated to demographic and agricultural expansion ¿to a period of forest recovery.
Within the PRC¿s borders, human-made forest plantations have expanded while natural forests yet present early-to-intermediate succession phases. Time is needed to consolidate the new achievements, improve the quality of forest ecosystems and further heighten the rural poor¿s living standards. At an international level, the FT in China has coincided with increased timber and agricultural imports linked to transboundary deforestation impacts.
From a socio-ecological perspective, the FT in the PRC can be a positive signal to improve conservation and forest-dependent livelihoods in other developing countries and to raise critical concerns on highly-unequal resource distribution flows between income groups.
Research goal and Methods In this PhD we try to assess the dynamics of livelihood strategies during the FT in rural China, exploring the theoretical and empirical implications about the role of forestry for poverty reduction and environmental conservation. We do so by combining macro and micro geographical scales of analysis ¿ country level (PRC and international) and local level (Daxi village in Anji county, Zhejiang province) ¿ which we hope can contribute to the understanding of processes driving the FT in China. We argue that the FT cannot be purely determined as a mere result of economic development ¿ as if it were part of an inverse U relationship between income and the environment (e.g. environmental Kuznets curve) ¿ given that human agency is one of its main causes through political-economic readjustment and policy implementation.
Historical statistical data were employed to analyse macro-level processes driving the FT in China, while local statistics and field work (questionnaires and forest inventories) were used to analyse micro-level processes permitting a fine-tuned understanding of the FT in the PRC.
Bibliographic research on both Chinese and English information sources complemented this work, allowing for a theoretical perspective on the FT, forestry and poverty issues, and land tenure in the PRC and elsewhere.
Processes Driving the Forest Transition in China FT¿s causes must be traced back to the interaction among: the underlying demographictechnologic- economic-ecological processes; the political-economic processes; and the environmental consciousness of a given society, in this case the modern Chinese society.
The FT in the PRC has been chronologically preceded by a long historical period of natural forest loss and land degradation (prior to 1949 and continued up to the late 1990s); a demographic transition in the mid-1970s; by a major political-economic transition brought by 1978 Reform ¿ from the collective planned towards a socialist-market economy ¿ readjusting work incentives and techno-environmental productivity at the livelihood base (first in farm activities and later in off-farm activities); and by an impending ecological crisis (daily affecting Chinese society at the livelihood base) epitomised by 1997 Yellow river draught and 1998 Yangtze river floods. Upon a growing ecological awareness in China in the end of the 1990s, the New Forest Policy was designed and implemented triggering the FT in China and paving the path for the development of ecotourism and forest environmental services.
As a consequence of these processes, forest area and standing volume have expanded from 121.9 million ha (12.7% forest cover) and 8,655.8 million m3 in the first national forest survey (1973-76) to 195.5 mill ha (20.4% forest cover) and 13,720.8 mill m3 in the last survey (2004-2008). This growth in area and volume were mainly attributed to pioneering plantation programmes that were complemented, after 1998, with the effective stabilisation and conservation of natural forests. Notwithstanding this progress, average volume density in Chinese forests still equals to 85.9 m3/ha, being just 78% of the world average, while volume density in plantation forests is even lower with only 49.0 m3/ha. Besides, current forest cover, per capita forest area and per capita standing volume only represent respectively two thirds, one fourth and one seventh of world averages.
Since the Reform of 1978 economic sectors in China have gradually internationalised their production leading to a rapid rise of living standards ¿ and increasing per capita ecological footprints which already exceed the available national per capita biocapacity. The PRC¿s growth-based economic development model ¿ in a manner similar to western societies ¿ has reached a critical point where ecological pressures are increasingly put over forests and natural resources located in other regions of the world. Yet, developed countries¿ globalised economies do show comparatively higher per capita ecological footprints leading to forest loss and degradation mainly concentrated in the tropics. In this context, the PRC plays an intermediary role between net exporters (normally developing countries) and net importers (normally developed countries) of forest raw materials: first by importing from the former ones, later doing the processing in China and finally transferring part of the finished-end products to the latter ones.
Forestry, Poverty and Rural Development in China Geographical isolation, poverty and lack of adequate technology in forested areas have traditionally resulted in low land productivity, linked to environmental degradation processes such as forest substitution by agricultural cultivation on slopes in western China.
Increased land productivity through technological modernisation, however, has had a bigger rebound effect promoting further forest to cropland conversion in some regions, e.g.
through the 1990s in northeastern China. One of the main `Key Forestry Programmes¿ ¿ The Sloping Land Conversion Programme (tuigeng huanlin gongcheng) ¿ is aimed at stabilising the forest-agricultural frontier by reverting potentially-eroding cropland on slopes toward forest and pasture uses.
Within the forest sector itself, a first analytical distinction must be made between Stateowned forests in the northeast and Collective-owned forests in the southern region; the southwest region contains a mixture of both State and Collective forests and concentrates important minority ethnic groups. A second division is made between two differentiated production regimes, i.e. timber forest vs. mixed (timber and non-timber) forest, the former type is highly associated to the State-owned category while the latter is related to Collectiveowned forests.
Generally speaking, State timber forests also overlap with the remaining natural forests of the country which, due to the limited resource base, are managed under highly regulated timber markets leaving lower benefits to local rural populations. Up to the late 1990s this kind of forests has been employed as an industrial source of raw materials to foster economic growth, where `a negative modernisation¿ followed provoking the forest reserve¿s exhaustion, amplified environmental problems and a State timber sector crisis. Under these circumstances, the Natural Forest Protection Programme (tianranlin ziyuan baohu gongcheng) meant the adoption of the `logging ban¿ on natural forests, what has also negatively impacted local forest livelihoods with reduced harvests and forest workers¿ laidoffs.
The Fast-growing Forest Production Programme (susheng fengchan yongcailin jidi jianshe gongcheng) has the objective of establishing human-made timber plantations in the south that can effectively optimise the still-unbalanced skewed-to-young timber reserve.
Collective non-timber forests such as bamboo plantations have benefited from more flexible ecological, managerial and economic regimes, i.e. shorter rotation periods, absence of allowable logging quotas and less regulated markets. Moreover, these forests have been subject to a process of `devolution¿ ¿ the dismantling of the Commune system in the early 1980s ¿ allocating forest resources to household units. Under the Contract Responsibility System (lianchan chengbao zeren zhi) individual inputs were linked to individual returns, thereby improving work and investment incentives and promoting active afforestation by local communities. For these reasons, Collective non-timber forests have often witnessed a `local forest modernisation path¿ characterized by technological innovation, diversification of goods and services and increased benefits associated to increased farm and off-farm incomes. From an ecological perspective, rural economic growth following 1978 Reforms was nonetheless linked to both forest-plantation expansion and natural forest degradation, thereby being subject to trade-offs between biodiversity and development goals. In some cases, non-timber plantations have substituted valued natural forests (such as the tropical area of Xishuangbanna), although such situations have been reduced since 1998. The implementation of the New Forest Policy, which meant the official recognition of the severe ecological crisis, has effectively redressed these problems protecting natural forests and further promoting the expansion of plantations.
Concerning the implementation of a successful forest modernisation path, we think several factors must be comprehensively explored. Firstly, forest technological innovation and extension plays an important role by linking together scientific research, collective action, farmers¿ individual behaviour and knowledge. Secondly, in the Collective-owned forested areas, the decentralised Contract Responsibility System is highly advisable for non-timber forest household management, where universal egalitarian land-rights provide households with important forest income-equalising sources. Thirdly, the New Forest Policy has shown positive outcomes in the case of the Sloping Land Conversion Programme ¿ one of the greatest pro-poor conservation programmes in the developing world ¿ whereas the Natural Forest Protection Programme has been linked to some social negative impacts. In a context of fast economic growth and widening income inequalities, pro-poor forest strategies based on both regional and local economic redistribution are an essential tool to lift rural living standards. Fourthly, forest-based eco-tourism may contribute to improve the rural livelihood-base while forest harvests provide the poor with economic safety nets. Both farm and off-farm income sources will thus continue to play a key role in forestry and poverty alleviation in China.
Micro-level Perspective from Daxi village, Anji county Our direct source of information comes from Daxi village (¿¿¿), located at East 119o 34¿ North 30o 26¿ within Anji county (¿¿¿) in the eastern province of Zhejiang, also belonging to the Southern Forest Collective Region. Anji is a well-known bamboo homeland in China awarded with the title of `National-level Ecological Model Area¿ (¿¿¿¿¿¿¿¿ guojia ji shengtai shifanqu) in 2002. This county is undergoing a deep transformation from a rawmaterial based forest industry towards a multi-purpose forest management with special emphasis on landscape values.
With a total area of 23.4 km2 and a local population of 2,099 inhabitants, Daxi is made of eleven hamlets ¿ former production teams in the Commune period ¿ scattering across a local terrain ranging from 300 to 1,167 m.a.s.l. This village presents a low mountain monsoon climate with well-differentiated four seasons and an average annual rainfall of 1,570 mm (humid season in summer and snow precipitation in winter). Daxi is a highly forested village (90% forest cover), whose main forest uses are moso bamboo (Phyllostachys edulis), natural evergreen broadleaf forest (a highly biodiverse local secondary forest), Chinese hickory (Carya cathayensis), conifers (such as Cunninghamia lanceolata) and tea plantations (Camellia sinensis).
These forests are Collective-owned and managed under the Contract Responsibility System, i.e. households manage forests under very long-term contracts obtaining private income while formal property is vested at the Village Committee. On the other hand, Daxi has been part of the yearly official survey carried out in rural China, thereby providing a socioeconomic data track required for longitudinal research. These records were complemented by in-depth field research at Daxi consisting of a socioeconomic survey on the local population (92 households), forest ecological inventory (biodiversity, biomass and coverage measured across 32 forest plots) and another socioeconomic survey on ecotourism (both locals and visitors).
Macro-Structural Change, Livelihoods and the Forest Transition In the last three decades Daxi village has undergone a `forest modernisation path¿, a deep transformation in forest use and exchange values. A traditional forest culture, essentially an economic activity (direct production) highly integrated within the ecosystem biophysical limits, has been gradually replaced by a modern forest culture distinguished by increasing physical productivity and a higher degree of economic exchange (landscape use). In the Collective Era low work incentives ¿ and concomitant low productivity ¿ were linked to highly constrained incomes at Daxi, of just 273 RMB per capita-year (1978-79). Ecological footprints were presumably kept under considerably low levels but material standards were also very low. The fact that natural forests kept under a certain high pressure was the most noticeable ecological impact.
At the broad political-economic level, in December 1978 the 11th Central Committee at the Third Plenary Session initiated a key macro-structural adjustment in China. In Daxi, its first consequences were felt in 1982 with the adoption of the Household Responsibility System for agriculture, and in 1984 with the Contract Responsibility System for forestry. People¿s Communes were dismantled into a decentralised egalitarian forest management ¿ now run directly by households ¿ improving individual work incentives that led to a moderate income increase, 317 RMB per capita-year (1990-91). Farmers maintained a high degree of economic equality (Gini 0.21), although living under still autarchic conditions and their income and purchasing opportunities being rather limited.
During this phase 1978-1990 Daxi¿s economy was still largely planned and could be regarded as a `collective-decentralised economy¿. The majority of peasants made a living by investing their physical work into intensive bamboo plantations ¿ the basic livelihood in the village ¿ whose harvests were used for yet limited exchange and self-consumption (housing, bamboo shoots). Natural secondary forests were still suffering heavy pressure (firewood), while some rice plots were cultivated for self-consumption in the suitable-but-limited lowlands (valleys).
Bamboo management was thus the most attractive available income source while off-farm activities were still almost inexistent.
Under these circumstances of high reliance on direct forestland productivity, a local land tenure institutional innovation appeared ¿ the IFCS (Inter-household Forest Compensation Scheme) ¿ in order to tackle household demographic changes which distorted the original egalitarian distribution of forestland (applied in the early 1980s). We argue that the IFCS has promoted a compromise between equity and efficiency, able to solve typical plot boundary conflicts after the CRS was implemented, thereby raising forest physical productivity by 33%.
The IFCS can be considered as an effective transitional redistributive system from a collective towards a market economy, although nowadays plays a very discrete role in Daxi¿s local economy ¿ per capita compensation just representing only 1.5% of annual net per capita income.
Since 1992 building a reversible hydroelectric station and a new road has brought a major change in the livelihood-base at the village. The establishment of these infrastructures, which meant an important negative ecological impact over households living at hamlet 10, simultaneously let Daxi integrate into the regional thriving economy (Shanghai ¿ Hangzhou ¿ Nanjing triangle). In other words, the recent changes in the broad political-economy in China ¿ since 1992 called socialist-market economy ¿ could be fully felt at the village, once technoeconomic conditions (new road and the attractive effect of the dam) had been improved at the local level. Moreover, the opening of Daxi to the external world has occurred just few years earlier than the adoption of the New Forest Policy and an increasing demand for environmental services and forest-based ecotourism. This has also permitted Daxi village to swiftly accommodate to these new policy changes, thereby a major forest transition following at the local level.
The local mode of production or livelihood-base ¿ i.e. the way Daxi inhabitants sustain their basic-daily economic subsistence ¿ has been deeply transformed from traditional sociallygeneralised forests harvests (supported by physical work) towards a modern fast-growing ecotourism (managerial and service work) compatible with forest-wage labour. As a result, a dramatic improvement in material standards has followed, per capita income reaching 8,820 RMB in 2005-06 or an 8 fold increase in real RMB terms since 1978. Traditional intensive forest extractive activities have been simultaneously replaced by a new model of sustainable management in Daxi, combining an extensive bamboo regime with the conservation of natural secondary forests.
These two types of forests have complementary ecological characteristics, bamboo with high alpha biodiversity index at shrub and herb layers and natural forests with an extraordinarily diverse tree layer. Natural forests have also begun a slow but significant recovery after decades of overexploitation and do have a great potential for carbon sequestration. However, the local carrying capacity can be easily overloaded with increasing ecological footprints - waste and sewage from hostels - and loss of land biodiversity/integrity ¿ expansion of tea intensive plantations, tourist housing settlements, roads and other infrastructure (power station). Therefore, we can talk about a partial forest transition in Daxi, which has been propelled by the shift in the local mode of production (from intensive forest harvests towards extensive bamboo management, natural forest conservation, intensive tea plantations and ecotourism hostels) and the expansion of the local and (especially) tourist populations.
Recent changes in the local mode of production and the massive arrival of a visitor population, indeed, pose a qualitative shift in human-forest relations that obviously goes beyond that previous rather integrated culture of intensive bamboo plantations and natural forest harvests. Firstly, autarchy no longer holds and thus incomes have increased¿ something that most local inhabitants greet (88% of those interviewed said their livelihoods had improved somewhat or significantly) ¿ what means that economic exchange flows nowadays transcend the biophysical limits of Daxi. Personally, we believe this is very positive to the extent that it increases local material living standards. On the negative side, we also contend that `unlimited¿ and uncontrolled growth would just undermine the very existence of local ecotourism and could severely degrade local forest ecosystems and their integrity.
Unlimited is just a paradox itself ¿ ecosystems are finite ¿ and realistically cannot be a model for development.
Land Equality, Inequality, Gender and the Forest Transition This `forest modernisation path¿ has hinged on an equally important specific characteristic of the Southern Collective Forest Region in China ¿ forest land allocation on a per-capita basis among the local population. The collective property of land, inherited from the Maoist period, meant the egalitarian allocation of bamboo, hickory and tea during the implementation of the CRS and its strengthening through the adoption of the IFCS. This situation has provided local dwellers with their equal right to access and benefit from natural resources, thus guaranteeing a basic farm-based income potential ¿ especially that coming from bamboo safety-net income sources.
The profound change in the local livelihood-base, however, has brought new income differences along a spatial gradient between richer down-hill hamlets and poorer up-hill hamlets. Gini coefficient has rose up to 0.28 reflecting a higher inequality within the local population, a trend mimicking the general increase in income inequalities for the whole of China. High-income farmers tend to dominate those forest-related activities showing highest economic returns, maximising capital and wage-labour investments, whereas middle and low income households are economically more dependent on less-profitable forest activities and will diversify them to cope with economic risks.
The case of Daxi reveals the highly dynamic economic roles of forest resources during the development process taking place in in Anji county, where formerly attractive intensive bamboo harvests (in 1990) have gradually been displaced by a new bourgeoning ecotourism and intensive tea plantations. Bamboo is nowadays acting as an important local safety-net being the poor¿s key-strategic resource, hickory trees being an attractive resource in isolated hamlets which are linked to middle incomes, while rural hostels (nongjiale) are associated with more restrictive initial capital conditions (dominated by higher income groups) and favoured by more limiting geographic locations (down-hill well communicated areas).
Upon this reality, we believe that in the near and mid-term forest/agricultural land privatisation is not the solution, neither from a theoretical nor from a practical standpoint. A hassled privatization could lead to some not-yet-present problems in rural China such as land concentration in a few hands, landless farmers, and ultimately the privatisation of commons.
During this recent period we have also found an increasingly gender-age specialisation in the forest-based ecotourism sector, especially at down-hill hamlets, by which younger women often tend to run or work as wage labour in ecotourism hostels-shops while younger men often tend to work at jobs generally located outside the village. Obviously, we think it is quite positive that women are directly capturing an important share of exchange value, what very likely will empower them to make decision choices within the family sphere and the broader society. However, the very same `forest modernisation path¿ is also reinforcing traditional patriarchal roles which could exert negative outcomes in the long run, what might hinder their access to power within the broader society.
Livelihoods, Conservation and Development in Rural China Forest ecosystems in this country, limited as we have seen both in absolute and relative terms, are subjected to a still heavy demographic pressure and newly expanding consumption demands for both timber products, forest environmental services and forest recreational uses. The current strategy outlined in the New Forest Policy tries to conserve the remaining 133 million ha of natural forests, to foster the today yet-limited productive potential of 62 million ha of plantation forests, and to promote further afforestation efforts on low-productive marginal lands.
The Chinese experience teaches us that extreme autarchy ¿ which proved ineffective, not realistic and sometimes tragic in the Maoist period ¿ did not succeed as a `way out of poverty¿, especially in a world dominated by acutely unbalanced North-South power relations. However, some concepts such as economic redistribution and pro-poor growth ¿ widely popularised in the PRC respectively through the early 1950s¿ agrarian movement and later in the early 1980s - are worth regaining for the present and future, in China and in the developing world. Within the boundaries of a finite ecosystem, this means that higher incomes must decrease redistributing in favour of poorer groups and peasants, whose living standards must increase: there is thus a differential degree of responsibility within a global and regional context of exacerbated inequalities. From our analysis it can be also deduced there are important trade-offs between living standards and ecological integrity, thereby reinforcing the need for imposing absolute ecological-footprint limitations to higher income groups who must ecologically and economically compensate to raise lower income groups¿ material living standards.
Endless economic growth is thus unfeasible in physical terms ¿ at global, national and regional dimensions ¿ usually becoming a source of environmental distress posing negative effects within both the intertwining socioeconomic and ecological levels. Globally, we are today consuming 1.5 times the goods and services that the Biosphere provides us in a year, in other words, world ecosystems, and notably forests, are retreating and shrinking. Since the 1970s, the PRC has also surpassed its available per capita bio-capacity, putting overwhelming pressures over its natural resources and on the global ecosystems. Higher income groups and developed countries nowadays rely on an economic model that is highly unsustainable, unrealistic and unjust. Therefore, we need alternative perspectives to build up a new socio-ecological paradigm which could be practicable, universalised and adapted across our cultures, which conveniently tackles the forest-poverty link from a multidimensional standpoint.
