European Investment Bank Loan Sustainable Management Project of Rare Forest in Hubei Province Social Effect Evaluation Report Academy of Forest Inventory and Planning, State Forestry Bureau January 2015 Project Name: Social Effect Evaluation Report of European Investment Bank Loan Sustainable Management Project of Rare Forest in Hubei Province Project Legal Entity: Forestry Department of Hubei Province Consultation Unit: Academy of Forest Inventory and Planning, State Forestry Bureau Dean: Chief engineer: Professorate senior engineer Project leader: engineer Auditor : senior engineer Engineering consultation qualification certificate Degree: Class A Certificate No: ECA 20120070032 Academy of Forest Inventory and Planning, State Forestry Bureau Division chief: Yang Kailiang Professorate senior engineer Project participants: Yang Kailiang Professorate senior engineer Wu Fengyi engineer Wang Lin senior engineer Li Shubin senior engineer Bai Xingwen engineer Author:Wu Fengyi engineer Tabulation: Wu Fengyi engineer Proof-reader: Bai Xingwen engineer Directory 1 Project Overview ......................................................................................... 4 1.1 PROJECT BACKGROUND ............................................................................. 4 1.2 PROJECT CONSTRUCTION CONTENT AND SCALE ........................................... 6 1.3 PROJECT CONSTRUCTION OBJECTIVE .......................................................... 8 2 Social Effect Evaluation Process and Method ......................................... 11 2.1 SOCIAL EFFECT EVALUATION PROCESS ....................................................... 11 2.2 SOCIAL EFFECT EVALUATION METHOD ....................................................... 15 2.3 ANALYSIS AND CONCLUSION OF THE PROJECT SOCIAL EFFECT EVALUATION QUESTIONNAIRE RESULT ................................................................................ 18 3 Analysis of the Basic Socio-economic Situation of the Project Area ... 25 3.1 BASIC SOCIO-ECONOMIC SITUATION IN HUBEI PROVINCE ............................. 25 3.2 BASIC SOCIO-ECONOMIC SITUATION OF THE SAMPLE AREA .......................... 29 3.3 RESIDENT EDUCATION OF THE SAMPLE FIELD ............................................... 1 3.4 INFRASTRUCTURE CONSTRUCTION OF THE SAMPLE AREA .............................. 1 3.5 POVERTY OF THE SAMPLE AREA .................................................................. 7 3.6 RESIDENTS' PARTICIPATION IN THE AFFORESTATION OF THE SAMPLE AREA ..... 11 4 The Definition and Identification of Project Stakeholders ..................... 16 4.1 PEASANT HOUSEHOLD .............................................................................. 16 4.2 VILLAGE-LEVEL ORGANIZATION .................................................................. 19 4.3 MINORITIES ............................................................................................. 19 4.4 WOMEN ................................................................................................... 20 4.5 PEOPLES’ GOVERNMENT AT THE COUNTY LEVEL ......................................... 21 4.6 COUNTY FORESTRY DEPARTMENT ............................................................. 21 4.7 OTHER COUNTY GOVERNMENT SECTOR .................................................... 22 5. Laws, Regulations and Policy Framework ............................................. 24 5.1 RELEVANT LAWS ...................................................................................... 24 5.2 RELEVANT REGULATIONS .......................................................................... 24 5.3 RELEVANT POLICIES ................................................................................. 25 5.4 RELEVANT GOVERNMENTAL REGULATIONS AND DOCUMENTS ....................... 26 Major Findings of Project Social Effect Evaluation ................................... 28 6.1 BASIC INFORMATION OF PROJECT STAKEHOLDERS ...................................... 28 6.2 KNOWLEDGE AND ATTITUDE OF STAKEHOLDERS TOWARD THE PROJECT ........ 31 6.3 ANALYSIS OF EXPECTED SOCIAL BENEFITS OF THE PROJECT ....................... 32 6.4 OPERATION AND MANAGEMENT METHOD THAT'RE ACCEPTED BY PEASANT HOUSEHOLDS ................................................................................................ 33 6.5 CONDITIONS FOR FORESTRY DEVELOPMENT IN THE PROJECT AREA ............. 33 7 Identification and Control of Project Risk ............................................... 35 7.1 RISK IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF BENEFICIARIES ............................... 35 7.2 IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF MANAGEMENT RISK ................................ 37 7.3 IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF NATURAL RISK ........................................ 39 7.4 IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF POLICY RISK .......................................... 40 7.5 IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF MARKET RISK ......................................... 41 7.6 IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF REPAYMENT RISK ................................... 42 7.7 IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF RESERVE RISK ....................................... 44 7.8 IDENTIFICATION AND CONTROL OF MIGRATION RISK ..................................... 44 7.9 OVERALL ANALYSIS .................................................................................. 44 8. Suggestions on Project Design and Implementation ............................ 47 8.1 PARTICIPATORY CONSULTATION ................................................................. 47 8.2 PARTICIPATORY DESIGN ............................................................................ 48 8.3 PROJECT MONITORING AND GOAL ............................................................. 52 8.4 SUGGESTIONS ON PROJECT IMPLEMENTATION ............................................ 53 1 Project Overview 1.1 Project Background Hubei Province lies in the central China and the middle branch of Yangtze River. It’s also the location of some large hydro-junction projects such as the Three Gorges, Gezhouba and Danjiangkou, which enjoys significant strategic role. Hubei locates in the transition terrain from the second step to the third step. It has diverse geomorphic types 56% of mountainous region, 24% of hills and 20% of plain and lake area. The vegetation of Hubei province shows the transition from temperate zone to subtropical. It’s one of the biological resource-abundant regions in China. Shenlongjia is well-known as the "Forest Sea of Central China" and the "Natural Zoo and Botanical Garden". Hubei province enjoys rich forest resources as a result of its diverse natural environment. These forest resources play an extremely important role in the sustainable development of economy and society and the improvement and protection of ecological environment of Hubei province and even the Yangtze River Basin. According to statistics from the sixth review of the continuous forest resource inventory of Hubei Province, the total land area of Hubei province is 18.59 million HAs, with 7.1386 HAs of forest land. The forest coverage rate is 38.4% (including 3.48% of shrubbery coverage of rocky mountain in karst area). The stock volume of standing trees is 313.2469 million m³ while the forest stock volume achieves 286.5297 million m³. When it’s difficult to expand the forest area, the way to maintain both ecological security and timber security is to carry out sustainable forest management so as to increase forest productivity and quality, nurturing a forest ecosystem of multiple resources, functions and benefits in order to gradually meet the multi-faceted demands on forest of the national growing economy and society, which will promote the establishment of the forest certification system. Currently, the background of national financial crisis, climate change, ecological crisis and resource and energy crisis has greatly affected the sustainable development of global economy and society. China as a large developing country that plays an important role in accelerating the industrialization and urbanization also faces above severe challenges and new situations such as domestic restructuring and domestic demand expansion. Hence the Party Central Committee and the State Council established five strategic plans relating to the society, politics, economy, culture, and ecology. As the basis and support for the ecological civilization construction—one of five strategies, the forestry has formed the development path of modern forestry, ecological civilization and scientific development. Especially after President Hu Jintao put forward the goal—"by the year of 2020, the forest area will increase 40 million HAs compared with that of 2005 while the forest stock volume will increase 1.3 billion m³ compared with that of 2005" (hereinafter referred to as the "two increases") at the UN summit on climate change, the forest operation is not only a measure for forest resource cultivation, modern forestry development and ecological civilization construction, but also a significant guarantee for achieving the "two increases" and living up to our commitment on the global climate. Therefore, the sustainable forest management has been upgraded to an unprecedented position and become the top priority of China's forestry work. 1.2 Project Construction Content and Scale According to the site conditions, land use in the project area, relying on the resources around the dominant tree species, the total project construction area is 6,206.45 HAs, with 3,876.44 HAs of new afforestation, 2,330.01 HAs of tending forest and 11 converted or expanded nurseries (36.7 HAs). Necessary