Environmental Reviews and Case Studies: Is the Returning Farmland to Forest Program a Success? Three Case Studies from Sichuan

Abstract

China's tuigeng huanlin or “Returning Farmland to Forest” (RFFP) program has been widely praised as the world's largest and most successful payment for ecosystem services program, as well as a major contributor to China's dramatic increase in forest cover from perhaps as low as 8% in 1960 to about 21% today. By compensating rural households for the conversion of marginal farmland to forestland and financing the afforestation of barren mountainsides, the program, in addition to expanding forestland, aims to reduce soil erosion and alleviate poverty. This paper presents qualitative and quantitative studies conducted on the local implementation of RFFP in three diverse townships in Sichuan. We find the actual results to be more mixed than the official figures would indicate. Though there have been some positive results, we identify problems with site and species selection, compensation for land taken out of cultivation, shift of labor to off-farm activities, and monitoring of replanted sites, which challenge the ecological and economic impacts of these programs and reveal much of the effort of the program has been misdirected. We suggest that efforts are misplaced because of the top-down, panacea nature of the program, which in turn is a feature of Chinese bureaucratic management.

Acknowledgments

Research in Baiwu was supported by the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and the China Studies Program at the University of Washington, and the Robert N. Chang Foundation. Research in Sanjiang was supported by the Yale Council on East Asian Studies Charles Kao Fund and Travel Fund, Yale Tropical Resources Institute, Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies Leitner Fund and Carpenter Sperry Fund. Research in Jiuzhaigou was supported by the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences, University of Washington, and by the Jiuzhaigou International Laboratory.

Data collection in both Baiwu and Jiuzhaigou has been part of a larger group effort of trying to understand the two areas as integrated socio-ecosystems. Many, many people have been instrumental in this effort. We wish to especially thank Zeng Zongyong, Tang Ya, Yang Qingxia, Li Yongxian, Lauren Urgenson, Barbara Grub, Julie Combs, Keala Hagmann, Brian Collins, Ma Fagen, Li Xingxing, Ma Lunzy, Hxiesse Vuga, Phil Chi, Ma Zipo, Wen Lin and Sandley Chou. Research in Sanjiang was part of Christine Trac's master's project, and she wishes to thank Carol Carpenter, William Burch, Xuhui Lee, Gordon Geballe, Wei Liu, Jianguo Liu, Weihua Xu and the village of Caoxiu.

Notes

Notes

1. Tuigeng Huanlin means literally withdrawing from cultivation and restoring forest. The program has various English names, including Grain-for-Green and Sloping Land Conversion Program. Here we use the more accurate translation, Returning Farmland to Forest.

2. National Forestry Bureau surveys show that forest cover in the upper reaches of the Yangtze River declined from 30–40 percent to 10 percent between 1950 and 1998.

3. While not initially conceived as part of the “Open the West” campaign, RFFP has been adopted as part of this campaign aimed at helping China's western provinces catch up to the East, after decades of increasing regional economic disparity (Yeh, 2005).

4. The figure for forest cover following the Great Leap Forward remains uncertain; it is estimated to be somewhere between 8.1–11.6 percent (Robbins and Harrell, 2014).

5. Forest cover figures are scattered and unreliable until the first national forest inventory in 1976. After that, periodic inventories make figures from one period to another more robust, but the definition of forest was altered between the fourth and fifth national inventories (1989–93 and 1994–98), from 30% canopy cover to 20%.

6. China classifies its forests into five types: protective forest, special-purpose forest, timber forest, economic forest, and fuel-wood forest. The Returning Farmland to Forest Program designates two types of forest planting: economic and ecological. While there is a relatively clear definition of economic forest, there is no definition of ecological forests by the State Forestry Administration. As discussed by Yan and Min (2004), we assume ecological forests to include all forest types and uses that are not part of the economic forest definition.

7. In Sichuan province, 1.64 million ha of forests had been planted, 53 percent converted from farmland and the remainder through afforestation of wastelands. This reportedly increased the province's forest cover from 24 to nearly 29 percent, between 1999 and 2005; led to a 20–45 percent reduction in surface flow and soil erosion; increased grain output per unit of land; and the socio-economic development of rural areas. On average, for every 3 mu converted (15 mu = 1 ha), one individual had found off-farm work (Sichuan Province Forestry Department, 2005).

8. Our field investigations of RFFP sites were restricted to Changma; we collected documents for the entire township.

9. Pseudonym used for the village. Officially, there are 121 households in Caoxiu, as determined by the hukou records. This research examines households as units that live together, eat together, work together, and contribute and withdraw from a common household savings (Trac 2011).