Since the founding of China in 1949, the forest policy is fluctuating and many mandatory programs have implemented, which resulted in a sector characterized by tenure insecurity and inefficiency. The Chinese government is currently implementing collective forest tenure reform that will have a profound effect on many aspects of forest quality and use, including rural livelihoods and development.
For the equitable implementation of reform, rural small holders need sufficient knowledge and understanding of the opportunities and limitations offered by reform. Mr. Liu Song and his teacher Prof. Chuck Cannon of Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden (XTBG) examined rural smallholder's awareness and attitude towards the reform, across the socio-economic range, in three villages of Zhang Guying Township (113° 27′E, 29° 01′ N), northeast Hunan province.
The researchers assessed the impact of socio-economic status, educational background and gender on individual knowledge, understanding and perception of the current forest tenure reform in three villages in the Zhang Guying Township, Hunan province.
The research found that income level and educational background played a consistent role in knowledge and understanding of the reform, as people with low income and no formal education were more likely to be unaware and have no clear understanding of the reform. Additionally, low-income rural smallholders were more likely to convert forest to cash crops, undercutting the central government's stated objectives for the forest reform to improve forest condition.
The research results can potentially improve the implementation of the reform at the national scale, which has just started in several regions of China, e.g. Tibet Autonomous Region and Qinghai Province.
The study entitled “Impact of socio-economic status on the implementation of China’s collective forest tenure reform in Zhang Guying Township, Hunan: potential for increasing disparity” has been published online in Forestry, doi: 10.1093/forestry/cpr016
Abstract:http://forestry.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2011/06/09/forestry.cpr016.abstract
