[[Environmental Economics Sp 08]] | [[Mexico: Trade and the Environment]] | [[Recycling]] | [[Local Recycling Policies]] | [[Urban Sprawl]] | [[Trade and the Environment]] | [[Optimist Pessimist Debate]] | [[Forestry in China]]
[[Environmental Economics Sp 08]] | [[Mexico: Trade and the Environment]] | [[Recycling]] | [[Local Recycling Policies]] | [[Urban Sprawl]] | [[Trade and the Environment]] | [[Optimist Pessimist Debate]] | [[Forestry in China]]
[[Amanda McBride]]
[[Philip Rothrock]]
[[Ben Martinez]]
=[[Image:Logs.jpg|thumb]]Forestry in China=
[[Benny Karl]]
== Forestry ==
According to Websters Dictionary, forestry is the husbandry of forests; caring for, cultivating, and developing. Forestry also involves the management and growing of timber.
= Introduction to the People’s Republic of China =
The land area of China is approximately 9.6 million square kilometers ranging from tropical in the south to sub-arctic to the north. It is about one-fourteenth of the global land area. As of April 2008, China is home to 1,330,044,605 people and is still rapidly growing. This increase in population has negatively impacted the environment, especially agriculture lands and forests.
[[Image:Ch-map.gif ]]
= Types of forests =
Historically China’s forest formed a continuous range from tropical monsoon rain forest in the south to montane coniferous forest in the north (Richardson). These forests have now become segmented and vary throughout the regions. The types of forests are:
* Northern Coniferous Forest
* Mixed Coniferous and Deciduous Broad-leaved Forest
* Deciduous Broad-Leaved Forest
* Mixed Deciduous and Evergreen Broad-Leaved Forest
* Evergreen Board-Leaved Forest
* Tropical Monsoon Rain Forest
* Forest Steppe
* Steppe
* Desert and Semidesert
= Historical Perspective =
There has been a strong basis in forestry in China’s past. Tree plantings began as early as 220 BC and continued with commercial planting in the sixth century AD. The a traditional type of forestry, “Four Side” forestry, planting a diversity of trees along roads, houses, canals, and fields, was taking place for hundreds of years. Even with such a strong history in forest plantings there have been timber shortages for hundreds of years. The more current wars and political disruption of the 20th century had an even harder impact on China’s forests. Since approximately the 1930s wars and resource exploitation has limited forest regeneration and the forests still have not recovered.
After the political turnover in 1949 when Mao Zedong took over and the People’s Republic of China was formed land rehabilitation projects began. Afforestation projects to control wind, prevent erosion, and improving agriculture productivity continued into the 1960s. The implementation of multiple Five Year Plans (FYP) in the late 1950s earmarked most investments for industrial growth, limited agriculture and creating famine (Richardson). A cropland expansion during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) cleared large tracts of natural forest, and then state owned forests were cleared for the use at state owned sawmills.
[[Image:Forestamount.png]]
By 1978 most of China’s forests were already depleted covering only 8.6 % of China’s total land area. This area has now increased to 18.6 percent, but the average country’s forest cover is 34 percent. This increase in forestland began in 1978 when collective forests began to be managed by individual households and now collectives, of which individual households manage 80 percent, own only 60 percent of forest. The Three North Forest Protection Project or the Green Great Wall, began in 1978, and focused on reforestation to decrease desertification and wind erosion. The initiative continued into the 1980s promoting afforestation.
The beginning of the 1980 was marked by more forest loss due to harvesting. By the late 1980s there was a slight increase in reforestation. There were major changes in forest stand structure, species composition, and stand size. Most forests are single species and no longer diverse. The stands are also much smaller and fragmented. For the past 20 years the Forest Ministry has implemented major reforms in forest protection, such as amending the ‘Forest law of the People’s Republic of China’.
= Reasons for Deforestation =
# Make space for farming and settlement
# Building materials for houses, industries, royal residences, and infrastructure
# Fuel for domestic and industrial uses
As early as the 1800’ many industries like the copper industry clear-cut many forests and acknowledged their scarcity especially in the hills as one historian remarked:
: “Rarer, too, their timber grew, and rarer still and rarer,
: As the hills resembled heads now shaven clean of hair.
: For the first time, too, moreover, they felt an anxious mood
: That all their daily logging might not furnish them with fuel.”
[[Image:Mountain.jpg|thumb]]
It is acknowledged in historical documents that mountains were commonly deforested.
Historically China like Europe experienced large amounts of deforestation. The original Chinese core culture was somewhat hostile to forests and thought that for civilization to be established the forests of the surrounding area needed to be removed. Various Chinese dynasties have thought it their right to cut down trees, but some cultural traditions like Buddhism has helped to protect tracts of forests surrounding monastic temples. Transitions from being a state planned socialist economy to a state-interventionist capitalist economy along with sustained growth and social stratification has put serious pressure on the environment. China’s population has been growing rapidly since 1949 and doubled to more than a billion in 1987. This has put increasing amount of pressure on China’s natural recourses as more and more food is required to feed the growing population.
In order to accommodate increasing demand for food peasants have increased economies of scale by using slash and burn agricultural techniques. As a result, many of the forest recourses are wasted and much of the forest cover has been permanently destroyed. Certain areas are more threatened by deforestation than others and certain areas are worth more to protect than others. There is an uneven distribution of forests to the Northeast in the Heilongjiang and jilin provinces as well as in the Southwest provinces of Sichuaun and Yunnan. Local farmers who have a commercial stake in long-term wellbeing of the forested hillsides generally protect the forests than better those communities that use forests primarily for foraging for firewood. Some of the largest forests in the Northeast provinces are being deforested the fastest mainly due to burning. Also other areas like Jilin province are experiencing large deforestation in the mountains.
[[Image:Picture3.jpg|thumb]]
== It is Unsustainable ==
With China’s population rapidly increasing, their rate of deforestation is occurring at unsustainable rates. By the mid-1990s officials have reported that over one quarter of their forest bureaus had exhausted their reserves and one half reported that their trees were being felled at unsustainable rates given the rising population size. Also, by the same time 37 of the 135 forest bureaus reported deficits in timber production and financial earnings/resources. Currently, China is importing trees or purchasing territory in places like Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Russia in order to outsource some of their logging necessities. This action may begin to create the same problems elsewhere. In addition, millions of dollars are no longer being pumped into the Chinese economy and the government can no longer collect taxes on domestically produced timber. The fact that timber prices have risen 30% is also unsettling.
= Impacts of Deforestation =
* The roots of the trees no longer anchor the soil on mountain-sides, which causes soil erosion resulting sediment being washed downstream. Five billion tons of soil is washed away each year, which has comparable fertility to 40 million tons of fertilizer. The leaf litter also, provides a filter for rainwater, which limits the amount that goes into the irrigation systems.
* Erosion has increased the amount the sediment deposits in the Yellow River floodplain, which has created the need for man-made levies and has increased the intensity of flooding of the river.Every year, an average of 2,460sq km [950sq miles] of vegetated land in China deteriorates into desert and another one million hectares of land suffers from serious land erosion.
* Deforestation also causes more flooding and drought, because without the interception of rain melt by mountain forests the winter melt would flood once rather than gradually, which can be problematic for irrigation because it does not spread the rain water evenly across the year.
[[Image:Chartecon.png|thumb]]
* Where timber is planted for periodic renewal, it is often felled on a wholesale basis so that vast areas are cut at the same time leaving the ground once again perilously stripped.
* Changes in forest cover can also impact microclimates by minimizing rainfall, because evapotranspiration and shadow cover of the trees can help increase rainfall.
* Deforestation has been attributed to reducing malaria incidence, because it reduces the habitat of woodland loving malaria-carrying mosquitos.
* China’s solution to its deforestation problem has largely addressed by its reforestation programs around the country. In fact every year one million hectares of land experiences serious land erosion.
* According to the China Daily's summary, every year China has an average of 950sq miles of vegetated land deteriorates into desert.
* In the Yellow River region there used to be all primary forests 2,500 years ago but now its almost all secondary growth.
* Land use and deforestation varies widely across China making each terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem different and have different vulnerability.
* Asia News calls China the black hole of deforestation in Asia. Explaining that the Chinese market imports more than 50% of timber from countries where illegal logging is rife and where deforestation is destroying the lives of the "poorest communities in the world.”
[[Image:Small.jpg|thumb]]
= Impacts Abroad =
China currently has a demand for lumber that is greater than what it can product domestically. As a result, they have become the largest importers of hard and soft wood in the world. Around 70% of all the timber imported to China was converted into furniture, plywood and other processed products for export. Beijing has captured 33 percent of the global furniture trade over the past eight years. The thriving business, coupled with its domestic demand for paper and wood products, has kept the demand for lumber very high.
Many blame China's high demand for lumber for the vast destruction of forests around the world, particularly in parts of Asia. The Chinese market imports from wealthy countries, like the U.S and Canada, but also poor countries. China imports more than 50% of the timber from countries where illegal logging is common and where deforestation is destroying the lives of the "poorest communities in the world". Their demand has led to unsustainable harvesting in these poor countries, where often environmental and human health standards are forfeited for profits.
China has gone a step further and has begun to buy large amounts of property in other countries to grow wood for themselves. For example, China has purchased hundreds of square miles of forest land in rural Canada for harvesting. Owning the land abroad allows them to use it as they please, weakening their dependence on other countries.
[[Image:Importss.png]]
= Governments Priorities =
Water conservancy; afforestation, reforestation, and forest protection ; pollution control; pest control; birth planning; and other issues with greater immediate economic and health impact are considered more important than wildlife protection and wildlife preserves. Not all areas have historically been forested and do not necessarily benefit from having forested cover.
* Reforestation has resulted in the replanting of monocultures, particularly bamboo in the Mountains of the Southeastern China, which provides a large percentage of household income. These monocultures do not provide high ecosystem value for wildlife and do not have nearly as many ecological benefits as do broadleaf forests. Bamboo groves have historically been cultivated and considered culturally pleasing.
* The Renmimbi Plan (800 million dollars)- protected 60 million hectares of upstream forest under protection and began a major replanting program on deforested hillsides.
* Tree planting day done since 1981 35bn trees have been planted.
* Shanghai now boasts of its success in having transplanted 70,000 mature trees from its suburbs and from neighbouring provinces. They include magnolias weighing ten tons and aged between 80 and a hundred years old, transported up to 700km from Anhui province. Another 150,000 trees, says the city's gardening bureau, will be imported in the next two years.
* Tibet, where an experimental project has been launched to seed parts of the plateau by helicopter with grass and shrubs as well as trees. People are becoming more aware that in the headwaters of the river systems a mixed cover is more efficient. Even if this works, the benefits should be set against exploitation of timber elsewhere in Tibet - a balance sheet which for political reasons is difficult to strike. It is an uphill task in both senses of the phrase. There are, however, encouraging signs of a greater understanding on the need to plant and maintain trees on a long-term basis, says the CPPCC expert. Tree planting, after all, has deep roots in Chinese culture.
* The Chinese government has also decided to impose a special tax on chopsticks and wood panels, used in all restaurants in the country. "For their production, more than 1.3 million cubic metres of wood are used," said the Chinese Finance Minister. "
= Governmental Regulation =
== The National Environmental Protection Agency of China ==
The degradation of the forest’s in China are partially attributed to the national mindset that nature is regarded as a restraint that can be mastered or overcome, instead of something that is to be preserved and accommodated for. The creation of the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) in China was made in order to create and enforce environmental protection laws in China. As of the late 1980s, the NEPA has increased its actions toward helping the environment. The national consensus is that humans have been in many cases negatively impacting their environment. However, at the provincial level conflicting objectives and corruption severely weaken the effectiveness of the environmental protection laws.
== State owned Enterprises vs.Township and Village Enterprises ==
Many of China’s environmental problems, mainly air and water pollution, are both highly accelerated by deforestation rates. Somehow, even with the recent increased measures of the government to promote environmental sustainability, deforestation has fallen under the government’s radar. State owned enterprises (SOEs) are much more friendly to the environment than the so-called township and village enterprises (TVEs). TVEs take down forests at unprecedented rates to clear land for factories and facilities while the government carefully is able to regulate the SOEs. Since the 70s, when environmental laws were beginning to surface, the rate of logging China’s forests in order to meet the demands for factory and construction materials rapidly accelerated. In addition, the more rural and poor Chinese will participate in illegal logging operations personally justified by feelings of a growing economic inequality and lack of opportunity.
[[Image:Picture2.jpg|thumb]]
= Flooding =
In 1998, flash-flooding occurred across China and cost $20 billion in damage. The devastation of floods has grown over the past 10 years, and the government formally blamed the flooding on deforestation in the upper reaches of the major river systems and as a result created the Natural Forest Conservation Project (NFCP). The goals of NFCP were to accomplish the following: plant trees for soil and water protection, restore natural forests in ecologically sensitive areas, protect existing natural forests from excessive logging, and develop high-productivity forest plantations.
However, with the benefits for the environment comes a high monetary price. In just a 10 year period, from 2000-2010, the planned budget of the NFCP is $12 billion. The NFCP has already increased China’s mature forests by 16 million hectares. However, restoring the forest age structure will take a long time and the current restrictions expire in 13 years. The policies need to extend for a longer period of time to ensure sustainability for the future generations.
[[Image:Damn!.jpg|thumb]]
== Economics of the SLCP ==
The devastating floods of 1998 resulted in the Chinese government’s launch of the Sloping Land Conservation Program (SLCP). Because the government largely blamed the intensity of the floods to deforestation, the SLCP was created in order to encourage the conversion of crop land to forested areas. A study conducted by both environmentalists and economists measuring the effectiveness of the program proved that it was not particularly cost effective given its low to negative social benefit in the long run. Rural farmers dependent on their income from larger fields and higher yielding crops were under-compensated for their loss in crop income, while farmers with lower yielding crops were over-compensated for their much smaller losses. The environmental gain from the small growth rate of tress would take over 10 years to begin. And when it began, the marginal benefit was not cost-effective given the location of where the trees were planted as well as the large cost, $40 billion over 10 years, to implement the conversion of land usage. The experts suggest a revision in the policies in order to concentrate the converted land closer to the river systems and buffer zones, than land further away in places less effected and vulnerable to soil erosion.
The creation of giant Xiaolangdi dam which will be the second largest after the creation of Yangtze's Three Gorges dam works is feared to increase the demand for timber will put major pressures on other endangered forests in Asia.
----
= Reforestation Programs =
Reforestation programs and policies will also help restore the degraded land, reduce soil erosion, and perhaps can reduce carbon emissions. Recent studies conducted by the Chinese government have showed that the afforestation efforts have yielded carbon sequestration. The government even plans to use the calculated sequestration amounts in their total carbon reduction for the Kyoto protocol.
== Forest Ban ==
Currently there is a forest ban influencing the Chinese job market. Approximately 1.2 million jobs are going to be lost as a direct result of the ban and another 12 million indirectly. The government is going to have to spend 22 billion US dollars in the next 13 years to reemploy the jobless.
= Challenges =
* Even when the new planting is properly maintained, it will most likely take decades before it can produce the same climatic benefits as the timber which it replaced.
* In comparison with Europe, China has a much a larger population and has had much more intensive agricultural practices considering its large dependence on rice. These two factors have made environmental mitigation and forest regeneration more difficult for China, because the more extreme conditions.
* Unlike some European countries, late imperial China did not possess any new imperial oversea recourses, which it could draw upon if it fully exploited its recourses using traditional methods. Currently China is buying out land from Canada, other Asian countries, and various other countries in order to accommodate its recent dam creation and increasing population.
* The rapid increase of population will increase the need for cultivated land and stress the forests even greater.
= Our Suggestions =
Policies implemented by the Chinese government should be given more cost-benefit analysis before taking effect on the current residents. The policies should also be given the proper length to become cost effective and environmentally beneficial given the impatience of humans when it comes to environmental policy results. In addition, policies to provide reforestation in areas closer to watersheds and other areas vulnerable to soil erosion need to be concentrated on first, as they have the most potential to be cost-effective and beneficial.
The reforestation projects in China should focus on planting a diversity of tree species, creating better habitat, and a stronger forest system. The monoculture of planting is depriving China of its natural state and should be stopped. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way in which people in this country view nature, they should use the precautionary principle rather than treating the symptoms such as soil erosion, flooding, desertification, and total forest land reduction.
= References =
* Coggins, Christopher R. "Wildlife Conservation and Bamboo Managament in China's Southeast Uplands." Geographical Review 90 (2000): 83-111.
* "The Green Diary". 2005. The Instablogs Network. 29 Apr. 2008. <http://www.greendiary.com/page/4/>
* Elvin, Mark. The Retreat of the Elephants: an Environment History of China. New Haven, CT: Yale University.
* Hyde, William F., Brian Belcher, and Jintao Xu. China's Forest: Global Lessons From Market Reforms. Washington, DC: Resources for the Future, 2003.
* Jing-Neng Li. Population and Development Review, Vol. 16, Supplement: Resources, Environment, and Population: Present Knowledge, Future Options (1990), pp. 254-258
* Macbean, Alasdair. "China's Environment: Problems and Policies." The World Economy (2007).
* Muldavin, Joshua. The Paradoxes of Environmental Policy and Resource Management in Reform-Era China. Economic Geography, Vol. 76, No. 3 (Jul., 2000), pp. 244-271. Published by: Clark University
* Pannell, Clifton W., and Chrisopher L. Salter. China Geographer. Boulder, CO: Westview P/Boulder and London, 1985.
* Richardson, S D. Forests and Forestry in China. Washington, D.C: Island P, 1990.
* “The Guardian”. http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/mar/20/worlddispatch.china
* "The World Factbook." Central Intelligence Agency. 27 Apr. 2008 <https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ch.html>.
* Thomas, S C., G Malczewski, and M Saprunoff. "Assessing the Potential of Native Tree Species for Carbon Sequestration Forestry in Northern China." Journal of Environmental Management 85 (2007): 663-671. Science Direct.
* Wang C., et al. "Evaluation of the economic and environmental impact of converting cropland to forest: A case study in Dunhua county, China." Journal of Environmental Management 85 (2006):746-756.
* Winkler, Daniel. http://www.danielwinkler.com/deforestation_1998.htm Published In: G.E.Clarke (ed.): Development, Society and Environment in Tibet, Proc. 7th Sem. Intern. Assoc. Tibetan Studies (IATS) 1995 - Austria, Vienna (1998), p.79-96.
* Zhao, Guang, and Guofan Shao. "Logging Restriction in China: a Turnin Point for Forest Sustainability." Journal of Forestry 100 (2002): 34-38.
According to Websters Dictionary, forestry is the husbandry of forests; caring for, cultivating, and developing. Forestry also involves the management and growing of timber.
Introduction to the People’s Republic of China
The land area of China is approximately 9.6 million square kilometers ranging from tropical in the south to sub-arctic to the north. It is about one-fourteenth of the global land area. As of April 2008, China is home to 1,330,044,605 people and is still rapidly growing. This increase in population has negatively impacted the environment, especially agriculture lands and forests.
Types of forests
Historically China’s forest formed a continuous range from tropical monsoon rain forest in the south to montane coniferous forest in the north (Richardson). These forests have now become segmented and vary throughout the regions. The types of forests are:
Northern Coniferous Forest
Mixed Coniferous and Deciduous Broad-leaved Forest
Deciduous Broad-Leaved Forest
Mixed Deciduous and Evergreen Broad-Leaved Forest
Evergreen Board-Leaved Forest
Tropical Monsoon Rain Forest
Forest Steppe
Steppe
Desert and Semidesert
Historical Perspective
There has been a strong basis in forestry in China’s past. Tree plantings began as early as 220 BC and continued with commercial planting in the sixth century AD. The a traditional type of forestry, “Four Side” forestry, planting a diversity of trees along roads, houses, canals, and fields, was taking place for hundreds of years. Even with such a strong history in forest plantings there have been timber shortages for hundreds of years. The more current wars and political disruption of the 20th century had an even harder impact on China’s forests. Since approximately the 1930s wars and resource exploitation has limited forest regeneration and the forests still have not recovered.
After the political turnover in 1949 when Mao Zedong took over and the People’s Republic of China was formed land rehabilitation projects began. Afforestation projects to control wind, prevent erosion, and improving agriculture productivity continued into the 1960s. The implementation of multiple Five Year Plans (FYP) in the late 1950s earmarked most investments for industrial growth, limited agriculture and creating famine (Richardson). A cropland expansion during the Cultural Revolution (1966-1976) cleared large tracts of natural forest, and then state owned forests were cleared for the use at state owned sawmills.
By 1978 most of China’s forests were already depleted covering only 8.6 % of China’s total land area. This area has now increased to 18.6 percent, but the average country’s forest cover is 34 percent. This increase in forestland began in 1978 when collective forests began to be managed by individual households and now collectives, of which individual households manage 80 percent, own only 60 percent of forest. The Three North Forest Protection Project or the Green Great Wall, began in 1978, and focused on reforestation to decrease desertification and wind erosion. The initiative continued into the 1980s promoting afforestation.
The beginning of the 1980 was marked by more forest loss due to harvesting. By the late 1980s there was a slight increase in reforestation. There were major changes in forest stand structure, species composition, and stand size. Most forests are single species and no longer diverse. The stands are also much smaller and fragmented. For the past 20 years the Forest Ministry has implemented major reforms in forest protection, such as amending the ‘Forest law of the People’s Republic of China’.
Reasons for Deforestation
Make space for farming and settlement
Building materials for houses, industries, royal residences, and infrastructure
Fuel for domestic and industrial uses
As early as the 1800’ many industries like the copper industry clear-cut many forests and acknowledged their scarcity especially in the hills as one historian remarked:
“Rarer, too, their timber grew, and rarer still and rarer,
As the hills resembled heads now shaven clean of hair.
For the first time, too, moreover, they felt an anxious mood
That all their daily logging might not furnish them with fuel.”
It is acknowledged in historical documents that mountains were commonly deforested.
Historically China like Europe experienced large amounts of deforestation. The original Chinese core culture was somewhat hostile to forests and thought that for civilization to be established the forests of the surrounding area needed to be removed. Various Chinese dynasties have thought it their right to cut down trees, but some cultural traditions like Buddhism has helped to protect tracts of forests surrounding monastic temples. Transitions from being a state planned socialist economy to a state-interventionist capitalist economy along with sustained growth and social stratification has put serious pressure on the environment. China’s population has been growing rapidly since 1949 and doubled to more than a billion in 1987. This has put increasing amount of pressure on China’s natural recourses as more and more food is required to feed the growing population.
In order to accommodate increasing demand for food peasants have increased economies of scale by using slash and burn agricultural techniques. As a result, many of the forest recourses are wasted and much of the forest cover has been permanently destroyed. Certain areas are more threatened by deforestation than others and certain areas are worth more to protect than others. There is an uneven distribution of forests to the Northeast in the Heilongjiang and jilin provinces as well as in the Southwest provinces of Sichuaun and Yunnan. Local farmers who have a commercial stake in long-term wellbeing of the forested hillsides generally protect the forests than better those communities that use forests primarily for foraging for firewood. Some of the largest forests in the Northeast provinces are being deforested the fastest mainly due to burning. Also other areas like Jilin province are experiencing large deforestation in the mountains.
It is Unsustainable
With China’s population rapidly increasing, their rate of deforestation is occurring at unsustainable rates. By the mid-1990s officials have reported that over one quarter of their forest bureaus had exhausted their reserves and one half reported that their trees were being felled at unsustainable rates given the rising population size. Also, by the same time 37 of the 135 forest bureaus reported deficits in timber production and financial earnings/resources. Currently, China is importing trees or purchasing territory in places like Canada, Indonesia, Malaysia, and Russia in order to outsource some of their logging necessities. This action may begin to create the same problems elsewhere. In addition, millions of dollars are no longer being pumped into the Chinese economy and the government can no longer collect taxes on domestically produced timber. The fact that timber prices have risen 30% is also unsettling.
Impacts of Deforestation
The roots of the trees no longer anchor the soil on mountain-sides, which causes soil erosion resulting sediment being washed downstream. Five billion tons of soil is washed away each year, which has comparable fertility to 40 million tons of fertilizer. The leaf litter also, provides a filter for rainwater, which limits the amount that goes into the irrigation systems.
Erosion has increased the amount the sediment deposits in the Yellow River floodplain, which has created the need for man-made levies and has increased the intensity of flooding of the river.Every year, an average of 2,460sq km [950sq miles] of vegetated land in China deteriorates into desert and another one million hectares of land suffers from serious land erosion.
Deforestation also causes more flooding and drought, because without the interception of rain melt by mountain forests the winter melt would flood once rather than gradually, which can be problematic for irrigation because it does not spread the rain water evenly across the year.
Where timber is planted for periodic renewal, it is often felled on a wholesale basis so that vast areas are cut at the same time leaving the ground once again perilously stripped.
Changes in forest cover can also impact microclimates by minimizing rainfall, because evapotranspiration and shadow cover of the trees can help increase rainfall.
Deforestation has been attributed to reducing malaria incidence, because it reduces the habitat of woodland loving malaria-carrying mosquitos.
China’s solution to its deforestation problem has largely addressed by its reforestation programs around the country. In fact every year one million hectares of land experiences serious land erosion.
According to the China Daily's summary, every year China has an average of 950sq miles of vegetated land deteriorates into desert.
In the Yellow River region there used to be all primary forests 2,500 years ago but now its almost all secondary growth.
Land use and deforestation varies widely across China making each terrestrial and aquatic ecosystem different and have different vulnerability.
Asia News calls China the black hole of deforestation in Asia. Explaining that the Chinese market imports more than 50% of timber from countries where illegal logging is rife and where deforestation is destroying the lives of the "poorest communities in the world.”
Impacts Abroad
China currently has a demand for lumber that is greater than what it can product domestically. As a result, they have become the largest importers of hard and soft wood in the world. Around 70% of all the timber imported to China was converted into furniture, plywood and other processed products for export. Beijing has captured 33 percent of the global furniture trade over the past eight years. The thriving business, coupled with its domestic demand for paper and wood products, has kept the demand for lumber very high.
Many blame China's high demand for lumber for the vast destruction of forests around the world, particularly in parts of Asia. The Chinese market imports from wealthy countries, like the U.S and Canada, but also poor countries. China imports more than 50% of the timber from countries where illegal logging is common and where deforestation is destroying the lives of the "poorest communities in the world". Their demand has led to unsustainable harvesting in these poor countries, where often environmental and human health standards are forfeited for profits.
China has gone a step further and has begun to buy large amounts of property in other countries to grow wood for themselves. For example, China has purchased hundreds of square miles of forest land in rural Canada for harvesting. Owning the land abroad allows them to use it as they please, weakening their dependence on other countries.
Governments Priorities
Water conservancy; afforestation, reforestation, and forest protection ; pollution control; pest control; birth planning; and other issues with greater immediate economic and health impact are considered more important than wildlife protection and wildlife preserves. Not all areas have historically been forested and do not necessarily benefit from having forested cover.
Reforestation has resulted in the replanting of monocultures, particularly bamboo in the Mountains of the Southeastern China, which provides a large percentage of household income. These monocultures do not provide high ecosystem value for wildlife and do not have nearly as many ecological benefits as do broadleaf forests. Bamboo groves have historically been cultivated and considered culturally pleasing.
The Renmimbi Plan (800 million dollars)- protected 60 million hectares of upstream forest under protection and began a major replanting program on deforested hillsides.
Tree planting day done since 1981 35bn trees have been planted.
Shanghai now boasts of its success in having transplanted 70,000 mature trees from its suburbs and from neighbouring provinces. They include magnolias weighing ten tons and aged between 80 and a hundred years old, transported up to 700km from Anhui province. Another 150,000 trees, says the city's gardening bureau, will be imported in the next two years.
Tibet, where an experimental project has been launched to seed parts of the plateau by helicopter with grass and shrubs as well as trees. People are becoming more aware that in the headwaters of the river systems a mixed cover is more efficient. Even if this works, the benefits should be set against exploitation of timber elsewhere in Tibet - a balance sheet which for political reasons is difficult to strike. It is an uphill task in both senses of the phrase. There are, however, encouraging signs of a greater understanding on the need to plant and maintain trees on a long-term basis, says the CPPCC expert. Tree planting, after all, has deep roots in Chinese culture.
The Chinese government has also decided to impose a special tax on chopsticks and wood panels, used in all restaurants in the country. "For their production, more than 1.3 million cubic metres of wood are used," said the Chinese Finance Minister. "
Governmental Regulation
The National Environmental Protection Agency of China
The degradation of the forest’s in China are partially attributed to the national mindset that nature is regarded as a restraint that can be mastered or overcome, instead of something that is to be preserved and accommodated for. The creation of the National Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) in China was made in order to create and enforce environmental protection laws in China. As of the late 1980s, the NEPA has increased its actions toward helping the environment. The national consensus is that humans have been in many cases negatively impacting their environment. However, at the provincial level conflicting objectives and corruption severely weaken the effectiveness of the environmental protection laws.
State owned Enterprises vs.Township and Village Enterprises
Many of China’s environmental problems, mainly air and water pollution, are both highly accelerated by deforestation rates. Somehow, even with the recent increased measures of the government to promote environmental sustainability, deforestation has fallen under the government’s radar. State owned enterprises (SOEs) are much more friendly to the environment than the so-called township and village enterprises (TVEs). TVEs take down forests at unprecedented rates to clear land for factories and facilities while the government carefully is able to regulate the SOEs. Since the 70s, when environmental laws were beginning to surface, the rate of logging China’s forests in order to meet the demands for factory and construction materials rapidly accelerated. In addition, the more rural and poor Chinese will participate in illegal logging operations personally justified by feelings of a growing economic inequality and lack of opportunity.
Flooding
In 1998, flash-flooding occurred across China and cost $20 billion in damage. The devastation of floods has grown over the past 10 years, and the government formally blamed the flooding on deforestation in the upper reaches of the major river systems and as a result created the Natural Forest Conservation Project (NFCP). The goals of NFCP were to accomplish the following: plant trees for soil and water protection, restore natural forests in ecologically sensitive areas, protect existing natural forests from excessive logging, and develop high-productivity forest plantations.
However, with the benefits for the environment comes a high monetary price. In just a 10 year period, from 2000-2010, the planned budget of the NFCP is $12 billion. The NFCP has already increased China’s mature forests by 16 million hectares. However, restoring the forest age structure will take a long time and the current restrictions expire in 13 years. The policies need to extend for a longer period of time to ensure sustainability for the future generations.
Economics of the SLCP
The devastating floods of 1998 resulted in the Chinese government’s launch of the Sloping Land Conservation Program (SLCP). Because the government largely blamed the intensity of the floods to deforestation, the SLCP was created in order to encourage the conversion of crop land to forested areas. A study conducted by both environmentalists and economists measuring the effectiveness of the program proved that it was not particularly cost effective given its low to negative social benefit in the long run. Rural farmers dependent on their income from larger fields and higher yielding crops were under-compensated for their loss in crop income, while farmers with lower yielding crops were over-compensated for their much smaller losses. The environmental gain from the small growth rate of tress would take over 10 years to begin. And when it began, the marginal benefit was not cost-effective given the location of where the trees were planted as well as the large cost, $40 billion over 10 years, to implement the conversion of land usage. The experts suggest a revision in the policies in order to concentrate the converted land closer to the river systems and buffer zones, than land further away in places less effected and vulnerable to soil erosion.
The creation of giant Xiaolangdi dam which will be the second largest after the creation of Yangtze's Three Gorges dam works is feared to increase the demand for timber will put major pressures on other endangered forests in Asia.
Reforestation Programs
Reforestation programs and policies will also help restore the degraded land, reduce soil erosion, and perhaps can reduce carbon emissions. Recent studies conducted by the Chinese government have showed that the afforestation efforts have yielded carbon sequestration. The government even plans to use the calculated sequestration amounts in their total carbon reduction for the Kyoto protocol.
Forest Ban
Currently there is a forest ban influencing the Chinese job market. Approximately 1.2 million jobs are going to be lost as a direct result of the ban and another 12 million indirectly. The government is going to have to spend 22 billion US dollars in the next 13 years to reemploy the jobless.
Challenges
Even when the new planting is properly maintained, it will most likely take decades before it can produce the same climatic benefits as the timber which it replaced.
In comparison with Europe, China has a much a larger population and has had much more intensive agricultural practices considering its large dependence on rice. These two factors have made environmental mitigation and forest regeneration more difficult for China, because the more extreme conditions.
Unlike some European countries, late imperial China did not possess any new imperial oversea recourses, which it could draw upon if it fully exploited its recourses using traditional methods. Currently China is buying out land from Canada, other Asian countries, and various other countries in order to accommodate its recent dam creation and increasing population.
The rapid increase of population will increase the need for cultivated land and stress the forests even greater.
Our Suggestions
Policies implemented by the Chinese government should be given more cost-benefit analysis before taking effect on the current residents. The policies should also be given the proper length to become cost effective and environmentally beneficial given the impatience of humans when it comes to environmental policy results. In addition, policies to provide reforestation in areas closer to watersheds and other areas vulnerable to soil erosion need to be concentrated on first, as they have the most potential to be cost-effective and beneficial.
The reforestation projects in China should focus on planting a diversity of tree species, creating better habitat, and a stronger forest system. The monoculture of planting is depriving China of its natural state and should be stopped. There needs to be a paradigm shift in the way in which people in this country view nature, they should use the precautionary principle rather than treating the symptoms such as soil erosion, flooding, desertification, and total forest land reduction.
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