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The historical changes and the current ongoing Reform of Collective Forest Tenure System in China. Prof. Shen Lixin Yunnan Academy of Forestry Kunming, China. Yunnan Academy of Forestry (YAF)
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The historical changes and the current ongoing Reform of Collective Forest Tenure System in China Prof. Shen Lixin Yunnan Academy of Forestry Kunming, China
Yunnan Academy of Forestry (YAF) • Established in 1959 as a provincial research institution for the forest cultivation and resources management, as well as natural conservation in Yunnan. • Consisted by 6 Institutes, 2 Arboretums and 2 Provincial and National Laboratory with 278 permanent research staff.
Major research fields: • Mainly focus on forests cultivation, utilization and forests ecological protection, such as biodiversity conservation, community forests management, cultivation and protection of the rare and endangered tree species, rehabilitation of forest vegetation on degraded and fragmented forestland, utilization and development of NTFPs, forest diseases and pests prevention and control, as well as poverty reduction and rural development etc. • YAF has collaborated with more than 20 countries and international organizations to carry out the multilateral research in Yunnan and southwest china, Meanwhile, YAF also conducting the international training programme on sustainable management of tropical forest plantation.
Basic Information • Definition of forest resources • Administrative system of Forestry • Land tenure and ownership of forest resources
Definition of forest resources According to Chinese Forest Law in 1998, forest resources consist oftimber, bamboo, forestry land and other wild plants and animals living in the forests, and forest resources belong to state except those parts belonging to collectives entities (communities/collectives).
Administrative system of Forestry Central Government (State Council) National Forestry Authority Provincial Governments Forestry Departments Prefecture/City Governments Forestry Bureaus County/City/District Governments Forestry Bureaus Township Governments Forestry Stations Administrative Villager’s Committees Villages Groups Forestry Guiders Forest Resources (State and Community)
Land tenure and ownership • In general, both arable and forestland was defined as State owned and Collective or Community owned officially after 1949 in China. • The forests tenure in China involves ownerships of forestland as well as trees or forest resources above the land.
1. State owned forestland (42% of total forestland) Such as Commercial forests, Nature Reserves, National Park, and Protection Forests (ecological benefits, water conservation, shelter belt etc.) and Forests Contracted to individuals. 2. Collective/community owned forestland (58% of total) • Collective forests (including holy hills, sacred forests), • Contracted forests for self use, responsible forests. (before ongoing reform of rural collective forests tenure).
The historical changes and the current ongoing Reform of Collective Forest Tenure System • Historical changes of forest tenure systems • Current ongoing reform for rural collective forest tenure system • Progress of the ongoing reform • Issues and challenges
1. Background • The hilly areas account for 69% of the total land area and are home to 56% of the total population in China. • Large portions of hilly areas have been classified as “forestry land” or land areas for forestry development, even though many hilly areas are not forested or barren. • Currently, rural community/collectives own 2.5 billion mu (15 mu =1 ha) of forestry land, which accounts for 58% of the total forestland in China.
2. The main historical changes on forest tenure system Before the establishment of People’s Republic of China in 1949, the privately owed system was the dominated system both for land resources and forests resource. After that, the policy changes of land tenure and forest ownership could be divided into four phases since 1950’s up to now.
1st rural land reform ” : Both land and Forests allocated to individual households in the early 1950s utill 1958. • “Collective period : Highly centralized system from 1958 to early 1980s. • “liangshandaohu” started in 1982 to 2008 (next to land contracted responsibility system in 1979/2nd “rural land reform”). • Current ongoing reform on rural collective forest tenure system ( formally started from 2008).
Additional information:The “four wastes auction” in 1992 As the experimental demonstration for community forestry development in 1992, a “four wastes auction” programme used to implement in several provinces of China, which aims to transfer twenty year’s use rights of those waste hills, waste slope, waste sands and waste swamp by auction to the persons or organizations who has ability to rehabilitate vegetation by artificial reforestation on those waste land. Unfortunately, this programme was failed due to the twenty years’ use right is not long enough to get benefit from reforestation on auctioned waste lands besides the higher costs.
State Forests Community forests or responsible forests Responsible forests Fallows Contracted forests
Issues before ongoing reform of rural collective forests tenure • The forest tenure system has been changed several times since the early 1950’s, but the rights to own, use and benefit from collective/community forests was still not clarified by those ambiguity tenure systems between individual farmer households. • The ambiguity of forest tenure system has been a main problem for community forest management and interfered with sustainable development of community forestry. • As a result, either the village collectives or individuals had no clear incentives to manage collective forests efficiently.
3. Ongoing reform for rural collective forest tenure system 3.1 Initiatives 3.2 Objectives 3.3 Targets 3.4 Tasks 3.5 Guide principles
3.1 Initiatives • The forest reform of “liangshandaohu” in early 1980s improved collective forest management, but the collective forest tenure was still intangible or abstract for local people. • Individual households lack a real ownership on rights to allocated forests, and also lack necessary laws to protect benefits from forest resources under their management.
In order to promote effective developement of CF: • Central Government made the decision on Accelerating Forestry Development on July 2003. An important reform on collective forest tenure system then started experiments in Fujiang, Lianoning and Zhejiang provinces in 2003 and followed by Yunnan, Guizhou and Sichuan provinces in 2006. • A nationwide program of reform for rural collective forest tenure system launched when Central Government issued the official document on “fully accelerating the reform for rural collective forests tenure system” in July 2008.
3.2 Objectives • The ongoing RRCFTS aims to increase the confidence, initiative, and ability of local communities to participate in the sustainable community forestry management than before. • improving the previous forest management mechanism by clarifying and transferring of forestland tenure and ownership of forests from collectives to individual households with the fixed duration of seventy years by issued tenure certificate based on the contract of forest allocation.
3.3 Targets • The reform targets all collective commercial forest and waste hills/fallow suitable for forestation. The collective forests recognized as nature reserves, and forests under the national forest protection program are excluded from the reform. • An emphasis is focused on the equal allocation of forestland among individual households based on the number of family member. The allocation of ownership over a fixed number of the family size will not increase as the growth of population.
3.4 Tasks • The current reform ensures individual farmer’s “four rights as following: • the right to information regarding forest ownership and use arrangements; • the right to independently manage forest resources; • the right to transfer ownership of use rights of forest resources; • and the right to benefit economically from ownership of those forest resources.
3.5 Guide principles for reform A key principle of collective forest tenure reform is to ensure the use of clear and transparent processes. The reform details must to be discussed by all villagers and approved by at least two-thirds of eligible villagers. • Extensive community participation in all stages, especially in the decision-making process of tenure allocation; • Respect to customary community tenure arrangements, as well as consistence with previous policy provisions on forest tenure; • Ensuring the transparent processes for tenure reform in order to let local people understand the rights and responsibilities associated with forest ownership and management. • More attention to be paid to timing and careful management of the tenure transfer process.
Core issues With the issued tenure certificate, individual households have the legal guaranteefor their benefits,and also allow to transfer the forests tenure to others freely by the ways of sub-contract, rent/sale, auction, mortgage and joint venture within the contracted period, the forests contract will be renewed once the term of seventy years was finished.
4. Progress of the ongoing reform • Presently, the reform for rural collective forest tenure system is fully spreading throughout the rest provinces of country based on the experiences from the previous eight pilot provinces where the reform is nearly completed. • There are 290.16 million mu of community forestland, accounted for 80% of total forestland in Yunnan. In which, there were 255.87 million mu, accounted for 80.7% of total community forestland, was allocated to 6.2987 million individual farmer households with the certificate issued officially by government up to date.
The reform has produced some positive impacts on the rural collective forest management. It is popularly accepted by individual households because farmer not only receive the actual use right of forestland for seventy years, but also gain the ownership of forest resources on the contracted forestland, such as trees, timber and NTFPs and so on. Individual farmers have now possessed additional resources for further development of their livelihoods than before. • According to the government planning, the current round of reform nationwide will be completed within the next five years (2014).
Example 1: Mr. Long Youlu A farmer from Dadaochong village in Shiping County, he did not invest any thing on his waste hills contracted from collective in 1999 until the contact was renewed and forest tenure certificate was issued by the reform in April 2008. There were RMB180, 000 yuan was invested for forestation on his forestland. He said that he will make the waste hills become useful forests and leave them to his young generation as a valuable property.
Example 2:Mr. Hang Yongqiang A farmer of Beidou village in Yongping County, he has received a loan of RMB 500,000 yuan from bank by using his certificate of forest tenure as mortgage in 2007. He said that it was impossible to gain a bank loan without the certificate of forest tenure as mortgage before the reform. He was using the loan for the development of walnut plantation on his contracted forestland.
Example 3: Nanluo village Because lack of clear right for forest management, there was no income from collective forests before the reform in Nanluo village of Jinggu County. Presently, each household has earned RMB 2,000 yuan by collecting rosin from the pine trees allocated to them in 2007. Most farmers is now paying more attention on forest management than before.
Example 4: Nanhua County Forest management has been improved with clear tenure rights and responsibilities. After forestland for wild mushroom cultivation was allocated to individual farmers by the reform in Nanhua County, the output of fresh wild mushrooms has increased up to 3,100 tons in 2008 which is 1,000 tons more than in 2007.
6. Issues for discussion • There is a difficulty to allocate forestland evenly to individual households due to the quality differences of collective forestland and value difference of trees on forestland. The distribution of collective forestland usually takes place through random lottery for the equal size of land area while the volume and value of trees, quality and accessibility of forestland are not considered during the allocation. This practice results in that some farmers obtained forestland better than others. • Those villages where collective forests were recognized as nature reserves and forests under the national forest protection programs can not benefit as much as others despite of governmental compensated for the ecological functions of these natural forests. The current compensations of RMB75 yuan /per hectare each year is quite low.
Forests are important and irreplaceable source for cultural traditions and spiritual faith for indigenous ethnic communities, such as the holy hills, sacred forests. Traditionally, they are always owned by the community and considered a shared resource of community. The increased emphasis on individual ownership of those forests may, consequently, undermine traditional collective tenure arrangements. Therefore, the customary forest management should be respected during the reform. • For the slope fallow or swidden fields used to be shifting cultivation traditionally in minority ethnic group region, there is no clear definition of the land use types between forestland and farming land for a long time. As a result, many slope swidden fields were recognized as forestland by the current reform. It is not allowed to reclaim those land for farming activity again except forestation.
Under the condition of market oriented economy, many companies and enterprises hope to obtain large areas of forestland from rural areas. The current reform allows individual households to sell or transfer both forestland and forests tenure to the outsiders like commercial companies and private sectors. A new challenge is that there is no a set of reasonable standard or assessment approach/system to handle the transfer, such as how to evaluate the real value of forests and forestland, and who will be the qualified agent to deal with. • Another worry is that more and more villages and farmer households will lose their forests resource in future with the increased transferring of forest tenure to outsiders, especially for those poor rural areas, some farmers, in order to make money to improve their living condition, they have sold their forests immediately after forests was allocated. • Others still need to study, especially in poverty areas.
The meeting of mobilizing and information disseminating for the new reform
Creating documental files and preparing for issuing certificates
Public ceremony for delivering official certificates
Land use changes after the reform of community forestland tenure system
