IPP370

World Bank- Public Disclosure Authorized

Shandong Ecological Afforestation Project -SEAP

Report on the Social Assessment

Public Disclosure Authorized

(Final version)

Public Disclosure Authorized

Prepared for

Forestry Department of Province

June, 2009 Public Disclosure Authorized

Major Abbreviations and Acronyms

CIAD Center for Integrated Agricultural Development FGI Focus Group Interview HH Household M&E Monitoring and Evaluation OP Operational Policies, World Bank PRA Participatory Rural Appraisal SEAP Shandong Ecological Afforestation Project SA Social Assessment SWOT Strength-Weakness-Opportunity-Threat TOR Terms of Reference WB World Bank

1 ha= 15 Chinese Mu 1 USD=6.8 Chinese Yuan RMB

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Table of Contents

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 15

2. PROCEDURES AND METHODOLOGY OF THE SOCIAL ASSESSMENT ...... 17

3 MAJOR FINDINGS OF SA ...... 20

3.1 PROTECTION FOREST PLANTATIONS IN SALINE COASTAL AREAS ...... 22 3.1.1 Afforestation Activities proposed in the Pre-Feasibility Report ...... 22 3.1.2 Analysis of Impacts and resource use restrictions caused by the SEAP Project...... 24 3.1.3 Social Risk Analysis ...... 27 3.2 RE-VEGETATION IN DEGRADED MOUNTAINOUS AREAS ...... 30 3.2.1 Proposed Project Activities in Central Hilly and Mountainous Region ...... 30 3.2.2 Major Findings in County ...... 31 3.2.3 Findings in County ...... 41

4. CONCLUSIONS MADE BY THE SA SURVEY TEAM ...... 45

4.1 VERIFICATION ON THE INVOLUNTARY RESETTLEMENT...... 45 4.2 ETHNIC MINORITY ...... 45 4.3 FARMER’S BEHAVIOR TO THE SEAP PROJECT ACTIVITIES ...... 46 4.4 FOREST LAND TENURE AND PLANTATION MANAGEMENT PATTERN ...... 46 4.5 POTENTIAL SOCIAL RISK ...... 47

5. RECOMMENDATIONS FOR DESIGNING THE SEAP PROJECT ...... 49

5.1 PARTICIPATORY CONSULTATION WITH THE COMMUNITY STAKEHOLDERS ...... 49 5.2 ENSURING THE PARTICIPATION AND BENEFIT OF WOMEN...... 50 5.3 THE PARTICIPATION AND BENEFIT OF THE POOR HOUSEHOLDS ...... 51

6. ANNEX ...... 54

6.1 ITINERARY OF THE SA SURVEY ...... 54 6.2 DATA COLLECTED FROM SA ...... 54

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执行摘要 1. 概述 山东生态造林项目(SEAP)的社会评估是该项目准备活动的重要组成部分。此次社会评估 调查在选取的 4 个社评试点县进行，基层调查的时间从 2008 年 8 月 16 日开始至 8 月 28 日结束。此次社会评估由中国农业大学国际农村发展中心(CIAD) 的社评小组、山东省林业 局、山东省林科院、省林业监测规划院和试点县林业局的有关技术人员共同完成。 选取了新泰市和诸城市代表中部山区项目县、东营市代表沿海盐碱地区项目县，作为社 会评估的试点县，又分别从每个县中选取了两个试点乡镇和 4 个村作为社评的试点村。每个 村中，做了 4 个小组访谈，三个县共作了 48 个小组访谈，共 401 个农户代表参与了访谈。 社会评估调查中，采用了小组访谈、关键人物访谈、参与式打分排序、参与式社区资源 踏查、绘制社区资源图、农户访谈等一系列参与式方法。此外，调查小组还收集了一些来自 县级和乡镇层面的社会经济方面的数据和资料，作为社评的二手资料。

2. 社评的主要发现

(一) 非自愿搬迁

通过回顾预可行性研究报告的结论和分析试点县社会评估调查中收集的社会经济方面的数 据发现，该造林项目没有大型的土木工程建设内容和需征用土地的基础设施建设内容。 因 此，在所有生态造林的项目县，均不存在《世行政策保障条款 OP 4.12》所涉及非自愿搬迁 问题。 但是，项目造林活动和后期管护将限制部分农户对现有土地资源的使用，进而造成 对农户收入的短期影响，这种资源使用限制可被定义为“广义的非自愿搬迁”而触及政策保 障条款 OP4.12。因此，项目应该通过和社区中的利益相关者进行平等的磋商和谈判来制定 项目实施对农民使用土地的限制和生计影响的对策。

(二) 少数民族 生态造林项目区的少数民族人口很少，因此，项目将不会对为数很少的少数民族人口 产生影响。通过对县级的社会经济数据表的分析和在互联网上检索到的县级的统计数据，社 会评估小组估测了所有项目县的少数民族人口的数量和比例。结果表明，所有的项目县只有 为数很少的少数民族人口，占县里总人口的比例很低，只有 0.1%到 1.5%。此外，这些少数 民族人口没有聚集地，主要是散居，并比较好地融入了他们所在的社区。 在项目区内没有 独立的少数民族社区。 (三) 农户对生态造林项目活动的态度 在对农户的小组访谈中发现，所有被访谈的农户都意识到，通过项目和政府的支持进行 荒山、荒滩和荒地的生态造林对恢复植被，控制水土流失，保护社区的生态系统具有重要作 用。但是，他们也希望通过参与项目带来一定的经济收益，因此他们希望栽植既能有生态保 护功能, 同时又能给他们带来一定经济收益的生态经济林。这 是通过在农户访谈中打分排序 得出的调查结论。 (四) 林地权属和林地管理模式

项目造林总面积 65972.6 公顷。项目选择的造林用地大部分为集体所有的盐碱地和退化 的荒山荒地。在总造林面积中有 63551.1 公顷为集体林地，占 96.3%。集体林地中 33077.4 公顷，已经承包给了个体农户、联户和股份制经营实体，占项目中集体林地 52.0%，30473.7 公顷的土地仍然在村集体管理之下。

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生态造林项目中的主要利益相关者:

 大多数拥有生态造林项目土地使用权的农户；  村干部和有兴趣承包尚未承包到户，但已经被选择为生态造林项目用地的农户，或有兴 趣承包村集体造林地抚育管理的农户；  对项目感兴趣的联户；

以上的几类利益相关者不仅是参与式磋商的主要对象，同时也是造林项目签约的主要对象。

(五) 可能存在的社会风险

因为很多被选出来造林的土地都是集体所有或已经承包到户的荒山和荒地，所以不会与 农作物的种植产生土地资源利用的冲突。在造林的主要地区被选择造林的土地中有超过 90%的都是荒山、海边盐碱地。这些土地目前没有被农户和社区集约化的使用，因此，通 过与利益相关者的谈判和磋商（如和村干部、村民代表以及承包了土地或在 20 世纪 90 年 代末通过拍卖获得土地使用权的单个农户），可以避免集体土地和个人承包土地上的生态造 林的社会风险。

事实上，生态造林和栽植后的生态林的抚育不会在短期内对村庄和单个农户带来明显经 济收益，但当农户决策参加项目时他们更所关心的是预期的经济收益。 为了确保生态林的 生态保护功能和造林后保护表层土壤，造林项目里要采取一些保护措施，这些措施可能会限 制农户土地的使用并对土地承包者产生后续的影响。

三、对生态造林项目设计的建议

1．与社区利益相关者的参与式磋商 社会评估小组建议在项目设计和实施过程中开展系统的参与式权益人磋商。 参与式磋 商的主要步骤如下：

（1 ） 社区和农户的动员，保证社区和农户了解项目并自愿申请参加项目； （2 ） 识别参与项目的农户和不同类型利益相关者 （3 ） 就造林的树种、造林的模式、造林的后期管护和相关利益群体进行谈判和磋商 （4） 与相关利益群体和村干部进行造林土地上进行现场设计和核实 （5） 安排与参与项目的农户、联户和村委会(未承包到户的集体造林地)签订参与合同

建议在磋商中采用以下几种参与式农村评估的方法： （1 ） 社区关键人物访谈：村干部， 自然村主任，和村民代表作为磋商的对象； （2 ） 在林业项目设计人员和林业技术人员主持和辅导下进行村民小组访谈； （3 ） 由林业技术人员辅导小型村级造林规划研讨会； （4） 进行社区资源的断面踏查和绘制资源图，以便更好的确认土地权属、识别土地资源 的问题和选择项目点；

在参与式磋商中可以采用下面的几种参与式工具： （1 ） 利益相关者分析，通过利益相关者分析来识别谁是该造林干预活动的潜在受益者； （2 ） 农户贫富状况排序；

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（3 ） 问题分析，问题分析可以帮助我们分析土地退化的情况和找到解决方案； （4 ） 参与式打分排序，请求农户对被建议的造林树种和方式进行打分排序； （5 ） 矩阵分析，通过构建矩阵来分析造林产生的社会影响和协调矛盾的对策；

在项目设计和核实项目干预内容的过程中，来自省级和县级林业局的林业官员和技术人 员应该是这些参与式磋商工具的主要使用者。

2．确保妇女的参与和受益

为了确保妇女的参与，女子组的访谈应该是小组访谈的关键部分。妇女参与研讨会和 磋商会的人数不得少于所有参与者人数的 1/4。妇女应该参与树种多样性选择的磋商、造林 种类的讨论和后期的抚育模式等等。

女子组小组访谈的结果应该同男子组小组访谈的结果进行对照，在设计项目活动中妇 女的建议和要求应该给予优先考虑。

作为农村主要劳动力，保证妇女在项目中的参与和受益必须作为贯穿项目整个执行周 期， 包括在育苗、栽植、后期抚育、技术培训和技术服务中的参与和受益。项目提供的技 术培训，至少应该有 50%的妇女参与。应该通过在项目逻辑框架项目绩效指标来保证妇女 的参与（参照附在项目设计文件里的逻辑框架）。

3．贫困户的参与和受益

在项目设计和实施中对小农户和贫困户的边缘化可能会在社区内部引起某些社会风险。 因此社会评小组建议在社区层面采取如下项目干预活动，来确保贫困农户的参与和对他们的 赋权：  社区调查和小组访谈： 贫困户也应该包含在农户贫富程度打分排序和社会影响分析 内，在进行小组访谈时应该进行专门针对贫困户的小组访谈；  贫困户也要参与到项目活动在集体林地上造林时选择造林区域、树种多样性、造林的 种类的讨论和磋商中来，磋商和谈判的内容要关注以下几个方面：  如何让小农户和贫困户参与到项目活动中来；  怎样帮助小农户和贫困户成立合作组织或是协会，因为通过合作组织或协会这样 的形式农民能以团体的身份更好的参与到生态造林项目中来；  如何将造好的林地承包给贫困户进行后续的抚育；  如何帮助贫困户和所在的项目村签订林地抚育合同；  如何确保贫困农户直接参与到造林、种苗的生产和直接提供苗木，作为劳动力得 到工资补贴；  为了避免项目实施后大的土地承包户和未承包集体林地的小规模农户之间收入差别的 继续扩大，在项目设计阶段，必须在参与式规划协调小组的参与下，进行参与项目的 大户和不参与项目的小户之间的磋商。磋商的主要产出是保证低收入农户能够从项目 中受益的利益分享机制。作为村级项目的实施协调主体，利益从承包集体林地的大户 到小户的转移的媒介和监督主体，村委会也应参与磋商。  应该邀请贫困的农户来参加由生态造林项目组织的技术培训和提高生态保护意识的培 训中来；

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 应该鼓励贫困的农户成立自己的合作组织、协会或是林业合作社，并提供技术和资金 方面的支持以帮助他们进行农民组织的能力建设；  在村里项目实施小组中贫困户应该有他们自己的代表来表达他们的意见；

4．降低资源使用限制影响的对应措施1

生态造林项目实施有可能限制已经承包了造林地的农户和部分未承土地集体土地的部分家 畜养殖农户对土地资源的使用，建议通过磋商，采取如下措施，降低或消除对他们的不利影 响：

- 在磋商中，告知已经承包了预选造林地的农户会限制他们的家畜放牧，并和农户共同制 定应对措施 - 在县农业局或畜牧局的参与下，鼓励农户将现有的放牧饲养方式转变成圈养； - 在山地或荒地资源比较充裕的地区，安排替代的放牧地； - 安排部分土地种植饲草饲料，降低对天然放牧的依赖；

5. 社会影响和农户参与的监测评价

（1 ） 建立社会效益监测评价体系 为保证一般农户、低收入户和妇女在项目中的参与和受益，要在县级和乡镇和村级建立项目 的社会影响监测体系，作为项目整体效果监测评价体系的一部分。在山东生态造林项目中， 要建立自下而上、参与式监测评价机制。社区和农户在监测评价中的参与是参与式监测评价 体系的主要特征。 具体步骤建议如下: a) 通过开放式农户访谈和问卷、记录收集试点农户的效果信息; b) 开展小组访谈（包括女性小组），知情人访谈，合作社代表访谈，为项目绩效， 受益，收益打分 c) 在县级、乡镇级开展机构访谈，收集绩效信息 d) 分析收集到的定量和定性信息，得出影响和绩效结论，撰写报告并于有关部门， 层次分享监测评价信息

1 参见《政策保障框架》

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（2 ） 受益人参与和受益监测指标 为保证目标群体的参与和受益，建议开发保证受益人参与并从项目受益的监测指标并将其纳 入山东生态林造林项目的监测评价体系。建议考虑以下指标： a) 参加山东生态造林项目参与式磋商和项目规划行政村数量和参与磋商的农户 数量；参与磋商的农户中有 20% 是低收入户或贫困户。 b) 项目村中至少 50% 以上受到资源使用限制的农户参与了资源使用限制补偿机 制的磋商； c) 签约参加项目的农户数量； 其中低收入户或贫困户占 XX %； d) 妇女的参与和受益监测指标: (i) 妇女在参加磋商的农户代表中占 40%；(ii) 在 参与造林，后期抚育的劳动力中，妇女占 30-40%；项目支持的技术培训班中， 至少有 50%的妇女参加 （3） 社会影响监测评价的实施 a) 项目设计阶段的参与式磋商与规划效果的监测：村级规划阶段的参与式磋商效 果的监测评价应由省级和县级项目办负责； b) 项目实施阶段的监测评价：项目实施后农户参与项目情况、受益情况和社会效 果的监测评估原则上应和项目实施中的绩效监测评价同时进行。一般来讲，项 目实施中的参与和社会效果的数据收集应该是动态的、连贯的。乡镇林业站应 负责社会影响动态数据的收集； c) 根据收集到的数据，每半年对项目社会影响做一次评估。评估结果和结论应作 为半年和年度进展报告的组成部分。县项目办负责撰写项目效果的监测评价报 告，并报送省项目办；

SEAP Report on the Social Assessment

Executive Summary

The Social Assessment-SA for Shandong Ecological Afforestation Project-SEAP is one the important project preparation component. The SA survey was conducted from 16 to 28 August 2008 in four selected SA pilot Counties. The SA survey was jointly conducted by a consultant team of Center for Integrated Agricultural Development-CIAD, China Agricultural University, and the forestry officials from Shandong Forestry Department, Shandong Forestry Survey and Designing Academy and the SA pilot counties.

Four SA pilot counties, Xintai County and Zhucheng County representing project counties in mountainous region and City representing the saline coastal region, have been selected as SA pilot counties. In each pilot county, two pilot townships and 4 villages were selected for conducting SA, 4 focus group interviews were held in each pilot village. So, totally, 48 focus group interviews were carried out and 401 interviewees representing their HHs attended the focus group interviews.

Participatory methods, i.e. group interview, key informant interview, participatory scoring and ranking, participatory community transect walk and resource mapping, semi-structured household interview, were applied in the SA survey. In addition, second hand social and economic data and information were also collected from county and township levels.

1. Major findings

(1) Involuntary Resettlement

According to the results of reviewing the pre-feasibility study report, analysis of county social economic data and verification during the SA survey in the pilot counties, no large civil engineering construction projects are required by the afforestation projects. Land acquisition for other infrastructure construction will not be required. Therefore, the involuntary resettlement (OP 4.12) will not be required in all SEAP project counties. However， SEAP afforestation and follow up maintenance might change the land use patterns and restrict the land resource use of communities and relevant households and create negative impact on short term HH income. Such kind of resource use restrictions can be defined as ―involuntary resettlement‖ in a broader sense and therefore triggered OP 4.12. Countermeasures for avoiding or minimizing the negative impacts of these possible restrictions on farmer’s livelihoods will be one of important tasks for stakeholder consultation within the communities.

(2) Ethnic Minority

8 SEAP Report on the Social Assessment

The SEAP project will not have negative impacts to small amount of ethnic minority population. According to the county social economic data sheet and by retrieving the county statistic data through internet, the SA team could review and estimate the total number and percentage of ethnic minority population in all project counties. The results indicate that there are small numbers of ethnical minorities in all project counties, however, their percentages in the county total population is rather small varying from 0.1-1.5%. In addition, they are wide spreading and well integrated into the communities where they populated. There are no ethnic minority communities in the project areas.

(3) Farmer’s behavior to the SEAP Project Activities

Results of farmer’s group interview indicate that all farmers interviewed recognized the importance of the ecological forest plantations for conserving the community ecological system and natural resources. t So they wish to plant ecological economic forests which will have ecological protection function and at the same time can also bring economic benefits. This is verified by the higher scoring results of farmer’s interview.

(4) Forest land tenure and plantation management pattern

According to the provincial forestry department, in the total 65972.6 ha project sites, state owned land only accounts for 3.7 %, collective owned land makes up more than 96%, of which about 33077.4 ha have been contracted to individual farmers’ households or groups of farmer’s households, making up 52% of total collective owned land. About 30473.7 ha project sites are still managed by the villages.

Land users and stakeholders related to the SEAP project could be classified into:

 Large number of individual farmers’ households who hold the land use right in the selected project sites;  Community leaders and farmer’s households who are interested to contract collective lands which is selected for SEAP afforestation but yet contracted to the individual HHs. Farmers’ HH who will not directly contract the collective land but are interested in contracting with the village committee for maintenance of the planted trees;  Groups of farmers’ households and community based investors who are interested in the SEAP project

These stakeholders are the major partners for participatory consultation and also partners for signing the project participation contract with the county forestry bureau.

(5) Possible social risks

Since most of the selected afforestation land is collective owned barren mountains or

9 SEAP Report on the Social Assessment wastelands, there will be no resource conflicts with the crop production. Currently, more than 90% of the selected lands for afforestation are mainly barren mountains in the central region, saline land in coastal region and sandy lands in the ancient Yellow River bank. These lands are not intensively utilized by farmers and communities. Therefore the social risk of SEAP afforestation in the collected owned and individual contracted land is manageable through interactive consultation with relevant stakeholders, i.e. community leaders, farmers’ representatives and individual households who contracted or auctioned the lands by the end of 1990s.

In fact, the ecological afforestation and follow up maintenance of the ecological plantations will not create any economic benefits for the communities and individual households, but farmers concern about the economic benefits when they join the SEAP project. In addition, to ensure the ecological protection functions of the ecological plantations and conserve the soil surface after planting some conservation countermeasures will be introduced, to certain extend this will also restrict the utilization of lands and further create impacts on land holders.

2. Recommendations for designing the SEAP

(1) Participatory Consultation with the community stakeholders2

The SA consultant team recommends carrying out systematic PSC during the designing and implementation of the SEAP project. Following steps should be undertaken during the participatory stakeholder consultation: (1) Community and HH mobilization to ensure that villages and HHs are well informed about the project and they are voluntarily participated in the project; (2) Identification of relevant stakeholders for different types of the forest land sites; (3) Carry out consultation with relevant stakeholders on the participation, selection of the trees, afforestation models and post planting maintenance arrangement, etc.; (4) On-site designing and verification of the afforestation land with relevant stakeholders and village leaders; (5) Arrangement of signing the participation contract with relevant stakeholders, individual HHs, group of HHs and village committee (for the collective land which are not contracted to individual HHs)

Tools and methods of Participatory Rural Appraisal-PRA are recommended by the SA consultant team. Such as: （1） Community key informant interview, i.e. village leaders, sub-village leaders, farmer’s representatives as consultation partners; （2） Farmers’ group interview facilitated by the surveyors and forestry technicians; （3） Small village forest planning workshop facilitated by the forestry technicians；

2 Refer to Participatory Stakeholder Consultation Guideline

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（4） Community transect walk and resource mapping for categorizing the land tenure and identifying the problems of the land resources and selecting the project sites;

Following participatory tools can be applied during the participatory consultation: （1） Stakeholder analysis for identifying who are the potential beneficiaries of the recommended afforestation interventions; （2） Household wealth ranking; （3） Problem trees for analyzing the land degradation situation and working out solutions; （4） Participatory scoring and ranking of the recommended varieties and patterns of afforestation; （5） Matrix for analyzing the social impacts and countermeasures for mediating the conflicts;

Forestry officials and technicians from the forestry bureau at provincial and county levels should be major users of these participatory consultation tools during designing or verifying the SEAP project interventions.

(2) Ensuring the participation and benefit of women

In order to enable women’s participation, women’s groups should be formed for focus group interview during village participatory consultation. Female participants invited to the workshops or consultation meetings should be at least 1/4 of the total participants. Women should be consulted in selection of the tree varieties, discussion on afforestation models and post planting maintenance, etc.

The results of women’s group interview should be compared with the results of men groups, the special preferences of women should be considered in designing the project activities.

Women’s participation and benefit from the afforestation activities, seedling production, technical training and technical extension services, etc., should be also mainstreamed and ensured throughout the project lifecycle. Female participants for attending the project provided technical training should be at least 50% of total participants. This should be also ensured through M&E indicators presented in the logical framework and project performance measurement framework (refer to logical framework attached to the project design documents).

(3) The participation and benefit of the poor households Marginalization of poor and small households in designing and implementing the project might lead to social risks within the communities. The SA consultant team proposes following project interventions to ensure the participation, empowerment and benefit of poor HH at community level:

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 Community survey and group interview: poor and small HHs should be involved in HH wealth ranking, social impact analysis. Special group consisting of poor HHs should be formed for group interview;  Poor HH should be involved in selection of the afforestation sites and selection of the tree varieties and afforestation types for the project interventions in the collective owned lands. The consultation should focus on:  How to include poor and small households into the project;  How can the poor and small individual HHs form cooperatives or associations, so that they, as group of HHs, can be qualified to participate in the SEAP project;  How can the poor HHs be contracted by the project villages to maintain the planted trees;  How can the SEAP ensure the direct involvement of the poor HHs in tree planting and seedling production and supply, so that they will get subsidized salary for their labor contribution;  To avoid the possible enlarged social disparity between large collective land contractors and small and poor households who are not able to contract the collective land, a stakeholder negotiation and consultation meeting between large collective land contractors and small households should be conducted under facilitation of the county participatory planning facilitation team. Mechanism to ensure that the small households can share the benefits from large contractors will be the major outcome of the consultation. Village committee should be also involved in the stakeholder negotiation process, since it will be the major village based mediator body for transferring the benefit from large to small households.  Poor HHs should be invited to attend the technical and awareness building training courses to be supported by the SEAP project;  Poor HHs should also be encouraged to form their groups, associations or forestry cooperatives. Technical and financial support should be provided to the capacity building of these farmer’s organizations;  Poor HHs should be represented in the village project implementation group

(4) Consultation on the countermeasures for reducing the impacts of land use restrictions3

Since the SEAP project afforestation might restrict the land resource use of households who already contracted the land sites and households did not contracted the collective land but graze their animals on the sites, it is recommended that a special consultation meeting should conducted with these possibly affected households. During the consultation following alternative countermeasures for reducing the negative impacts might be considered:

- Land holding households: Inform the households who contracted the wasteland about the resource restrictions and consult how to reduce the restrictions; - Users of the collective land for grazing: support the affected households to transform from

3 Refer to the Resettlement Policy Framework-RPF

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open grazing to in-door feeding pattern in cooperation with the county animal husbandry bureau or agricultural bureau; - To allocate alternative grazing sites in the villages having large amount of waste mountain or saline lands; - To allocate part of the collective land for fodder production in order to reduce the dependence to the natural grazing；

(5) Monitoring and Evaluation of Social Impacts and Benefits 1) Set up Social Impact M&E system In order to ensure the participation and benefit of project households, lower income households and women, a participation and social impacts M&E system should be established at provincial, county and township levels. A bottom-up and participatory monitoring and evaluation-PME is recommended to be established in SEAP project. Major steps of participatory social impact monitoring and evaluation are: a) Conduct HH semi-structured interview or sampled HH questionnaires for assessing the participation and benefits of these HHs; b) Conduct HH group interview (includes women’s group), key informant interview, assessing the impacts and benefits. Recommended tools are ranking and scoring tools under facilitation of M&E staff; c) Institutional interview at county and township levels for collecting the performance related first and second hand data; d) The collected performance related data and information will be analyzed and integrated at the county level as basis for writing up the Social impact M&E report to be submitted to upper levels. 2) Proposed Indicators for Social Impact Evaluation Following social impact and participation measurement indicators are recommended to be incorporated into the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system of SEAP project:

(i) Total number of households and villages who participated in the participatory consultation and planning process, at least 20% of them are lower income or poor households; (ii) At least 50% of the households affected by the resource restrictions caused by SEAP interventions participated in the restriction compensation negotiation meeting facilitated by the participatory planning facilitation team; (iii) Number of HHs who signed the participation contract with SEAP project, of which xx% are lower income or poor households; (iv) Participation and benefit of women from the project: (i) 40% women representing their HHs attended the participatory consultation; (ii) 30-40% of labors for afforestation and follow up maintenance are women; (iii) at least 50% of the trainees of project provided technical training courses are women. 3) Implementation of the M&E

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a) Monitoring the participation during the project designing and planning period: Provincial and County PMOs will be responsible for monitoring the participation and efficiency of different stakeholders within the communities； b) Social Impact Monitoring and Evaluation during the project implementation：Social impact monitoring and evaluation should be conducted in parallel to the overall impact monitoring and evaluation. In general, the internal M&E for participation and social impact should be conducted in a continuous dynamic manner. Township M&E agent should be responsible for on-going M&E data collection； c) Semi-annual social impact evaluation should be done based on the collected data, the results of evaluation will be incorporated into semi-annual and annual progress reports. County PMO will be responsible for compiling the internal M&E report and submitting to PPMO for integration；

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1. Introduction

Shandong Province is located in the down reach region of Yellow River with diversified geographical features. The province has a forest cover of only 13.4 percent ranking it low among China’s provinces. Soil erosion, droughts, desertification and flooding are frequent problems in the province. Out of a total area of 82,384 km2, which has been identified as important for soil & water conservation, less than one third is protected by forests. The lack of sufficient forest resources largely limits its environmental functions resulting in a continuation of significant soil and water erosion, droughts and wind damage. To combat the problems the provincial and county governments in different regions have placed ecological forest development in its development priority. The proposed Shandong Ecological Afforestation Project-SEAP to be financed by World Bank Loan would support provincial Government in promoting the establishment of ecological forests with a primarily public goods function.

A pre-feasibility study was conducted by the forestry bureau of the project counties and the Provincial Forestry Department in May 2008. The project area covers a total of 32 counties located in three types of geographical zones and 10 prefectures.

In June, July and October 2008, World Bank (WB) has fielded three project preparation missions to Shandong Province for visiting project counties and discussing the proposed project with Provincial authorities—Provincial Forestry Department, Department of Finance, and Department of Development Reform Commission.

As an instrument of social safeguard a Social Assessment –SA has been conducted in four project counties. The Center for Integrated Agricultural Development-CIAD, China Agricultural University, was commissioned by the Provincial Forestry Department of Shandong for facilitating the SA exercise.

Major objectives and tasks of the SA are:

(1) To inform the communities, farmers and other project stakeholders in the project areas about the afforestation design, i.e. varieties, types and implementation arrangement; (2) To insure that the project will benefit communities and farmers, to avoid negatively effect on farmer’s livelihoods caused by afforestation and infrastructure construction activities. (3) To check out whether World Bank OP 4.12 on Involuntary Resettlement will be applicable in the project. In case that resettlement is needed, a Resettlement Strategy with compensation arrangement will be worked out through consultation

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with relevant stakeholders; (4) To identify possible social risks that may occur during and beyond the implementation of SEAP; (5) To gather information and data on the socio-economic conditions and qualitative information on forest property, land use pattern, etc., as baseline data for forthcoming impact monitoring and evaluation.

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2. Procedures and Methodology of the Social Assessment

According to the above mentioned objectives and requirements, the consultants will fulfill following tasks in six steps:

(1) Preparation of the SA survey - Preparing a working plan for carrying out the SA according to the TOR and draft MOU of World Bank Pre-identification Mission; - Team building: CIAD formed a consultant team for carrying out the SA; - Designing the questionnaires and checklists for the institutional survey, focus group interview and datasheets for collecting second hand data at county, township and village levels (2) Training of the local SA surveyors selected from four SA pilot counties - Designing and developing A Social Assessment Methodology Training Manual for the SA method training and as guidelines for field practice; - Providing a three-day SA methodology training in one of the selected SA pilot counties. 3-4 persons from provincial department and 4-6 persons from each of four SA pilot counties attended the training. These trainees were the major surveyors for carrying out the SA survey in the pilot counties. (3) Design the sampling framework for SA survey

Three counties were selected as SA pilot counties, namely Xintai and Zhucheng representing the counties in the mountainous region and representing the counties in the saline coastal region. In selection of SA counties (districts), the representation of different ecological zones within the provinces and socio-economic characters are the two major criteria. Concerning the time limit and the human power input of the provincial and county forestry bureaus, each county (districts) has selected 2 pilot townships and each pilot township has selected 2 villages according to the selection criteria. In total, 6 townships, 12 villages have been selected for SA. 48 focus group interviews were carried out, 4 in each village 4 . 401 interviewees representing their HHs attended the focus group interview. The table below shows the sampling model.

4 Inclduing village key informant interview as one of four group interviews

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Table 2-1 Sampling Framework for SA in Shandong Province

Project Activity Prefecture County (District) Township Village No. of focus No. of HHs group represented interviews Longdu Daheilonggou 4 25 Tanjiazhuang 4 33 Zhucheng Huanghua Caosi 4 30 Xishanpo 4 32 Re-vegetation of Degraded Mountainous Areas Wennan Zhifang 4 42

Yangzhuang 4 35 Tai’an Xintai Beizhan 4 45 Longting Shangbaoyu 4 35 Yihe Liangjia 4 32 Hewang 4 28 Protective Plantations on Saline Coastal Areas Dongying Hekou District Xinhu Xinhudong 4 30 Xinghe 4 34 Total 3 6 12 48 401

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(4) Carry out the SA field survey

The SA survey was carried out by the provincial and county staff who attended the SA methodology training. CIAD assigned four SA facilitators for assisting the SA exercise. Major activities include:

- Conducting institutional survey at the county level for analysis of the stakeholders, the current future holders of the forest land use right and identifying possible social impacts of the SEAP and the land use right reform. - In addition, county social-economic statistic data were also collected and documented in county social-economic datasheets. Demographic census data and resource endowment related data were also collected from relevant governmental line agencies; - Village and HH Survey:

a) Village key informant interview for identifying the community stakeholders and impacts of SEAP and land use right reform, collecting village social-economic data for producing the village social-economic datasheets; b) Conduct focus group interview: (i) to inform farmers about the afforestation project; (ii) to identify the possible social economic impacts and incentives from point of view of farmers and villages; (iii) to assess possible social risks faced by the project; and (iv) to work out a compensation strategy if there will be any negative impacts caused by SEAP; c) Conducting village transect walk to identify the current village land use pattern, the community land or land contracted to the HHs to be allocated for ecological afforestation project.

(5) Data assembling and documentation

After completion of the SA field survey, the county and provincial surveyors assembled the collected second hand and first hand data and documented them into Excel Data Bank. The documented data and information were submitted to CIAD for further analysis and formulating the findings.

(6) Write up the SA report

The SA report was produced by CIAD SA team based on the collected data and formulated findings. A guideline conducting participatory stakeholder consultation was prepared by the SA consultant team for guiding the project designing process.

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3 Review of provincial forestry resource management policy

3.1 The forest land tenure reform

Forest land tenure reform in Shandong Province can be traced back to the end of 1990s. The central part of Shandong Province which is mountainous and hilly area under threat of vegetation and soil and water erosion was the major target area of the land tenure reform. According to the Provincial Forestry Department-PFD, the mountain and hilly lands makes up 28.7% of the total provincial territory area. Comparing with Southern China provinces, the overall implementation of forestland tenure reform in Shandong is relatively slow. According to the Provincial Forestry Department, forestland tenure reform is still in the pilot phase. Until September 2008, 12.14 million mu collective owned forestlands have been identified and verified their ownership and contracted to individual households, only accounting for 20.7% of total collective owned forestlands in the province.

According to the policy guidelines drawn up by Provincial Forestry Department, the objective of the forestland tenure reform is to ensure the ecological functions of the forestlands and at the same time to increase farmer’s and communities’ benefits from participating in the afforestation programs. The reform policy has also given implementation guidelines, such as:

- The collective owned lands which have been already planned as ―public ecological protective forests‖ but not yet contracted to the individual house holds will be principally further managed by the collectives. - For the forestlands which have been already contracted or auctioned to the individual households, the use right will be clarified and certified. The use right of forestlands can be transferred and further contracted. Use right can be converted to share-holding, can be used as collateral land property for borrowing loans, etc.; - For the collective forestlands with higher potential economic benefit but may not suitable for management by large number of small individual households, it is recommended to adopt the principle ―shareholding but not dividing the mountain, sharing benefits but not dividing the forests‖. - For forestlands in the mountainous area the contracting period is 70 years, for the forestlands or the forest stands the contracting period is for 30-50 years in order to be in accordance with the farmland contracting period.

Among 65972.6ha5 SEAP project afforestation area, 63551 ha is collective owned land, of which 33077 ha has been contracted to the individual households and household groups, making up about 52% in the total collective owned afforestation land, whilst 30473 ha is still managed by the

5 the total project area may have changed due to the drop out of four counties in Prefecture

20 SEAP Report on the Social Assessment administrative villages, accounting for 48%. Accelerated by the National Forest Land Tenure Reform Shandong Province has formulated the forest land tenure strategy and the overall implementation plan based on the experiences made in pilot reform period, the forestland tenure reform will be intensively implemented in 2010 and accomplished in 2013. This implies that the forest land tenure and management pattern of 48% collective managed wasteland to be selected by SEAP project will be further contracted to individual households according to the forestland tenure reform policy until 2013. On the other hand, the SEAP project might be an attractive incentive and opportunity for farmers who are interested to contract these wastelands so that they will reforest these wastelands with ecological forests and with certain percentage of ecological economic forests through support of the SEAP project. In this context, the participatory stakeholder consultation and participatory forest development planning instruments and capacity building component supported by the SEAP project will make contribution to the forestland tenure reform.

3.2 Land Conversion Policy in Shandong Province

The National Land Conversion Program was launched after flooding disaster in Yangtze River in 1998. In 2002 the State Council issued ―National Regulations for Conversion of Sloppy Farmlands to Forest Lands‖. The major objective of the policy is to control land erosion caused by cultivating the sloppy mountain and hilly lands. The major region for implementing the policy is middle and up reach areas of Yangtze River and Yellow River. Farmers’ households who give up the cultivated land and converted their land into forestlands received governmental compensation in kind of grain and cash money subsidy. The implementation period is from 2000 to 2010. Located in the down reach region of Yellow River, Shandong Province is not the key province for implementing the land conversion program. The policy was only implemented in some area of the central mountain and hilly region, therefore, there will be no site overlapping with the SEAP project.

3.3 Forest ecological compensation scheme

In 2001 Shandong Province was selected by SFA for piloting the forest ecological compensation policy. In June 2006 the Shandong Provincial Government publicized a Policy Document ―Shandong Province Forest Ecological Compensation Fund Management Regulations‖. The ecological compensation policy is aiming at improving the ecological functions of the existing forest stands by subsidizing 5 Yuan/mu to farmers who are contracted to maintain and manage the afforested plantations. Until 2008 a total of more than 20 million mu forests have received the compensation funds. Main compensation target is the public ecological forests under threat of forest pests, forest fire and illegal deforestation. The major countermeasure is to subsidize the forest farmers to conduct replanting, maintenance, pest management, fire prevention and hiring forest safeguards. The compensation funds are allocated by the Provincial Finance Department. According to the Provincial Forestry Department, forestlands selected by SEAP project can also receive the ecological compensation funds, which will be an opportunity for SEAP project farmers to get additional support.

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4. Major Findings of SA

4.1 Protection Forest Plantations in Saline Coastal Areas

4.1.1 Afforestation Activities proposed in the Pre-Feasibility Report

According to the pre-feasibility study report 32,000 ha protection forests will be established in saline coastal area of Yellow River Delta. The project plans to plant trees and shrubs along roads, canals and blocks of designated afforestation areas to improve the environment and stabilized soil movements caused by wind and water erosion.

The plantations would be implemented in 10 counties (districts) of 3 prefectures, shown in the table below.

Table 4-1-1 Project Location of Protection Forest Plantations on Saline Coastal Areas

Project Prefecture County Project Prefecture County (district) (district) Lijin Zhanhua Wudi Dongying Protective Hekou Protective Huimin Plantations on Plantations on District Saline Coastal Saline Coastal Areas Areas Kenli Industrial Hanting Development Weifang District District Changyi

In saline coastal areas, the project would build mixed forests of arbor and shrub, conduct enclosure culture of Tamarix chinensis Lour to form the integrated windbreak protection forest system with multi afforestation types, multi tree species and multi functions.

The SA team conducted the field survey and investigation in Hekou District of Dongying Municipality representing the ecosystem features of coastal area. Dongying Municipality is located in delta area of Huang River, so it suffered serious salinization. The salinization is also the most serious problem in afforestation in this area, which retained the selection of tree species for forestation.

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According to the District Forestry Bureau, major tree species to be selected for ecological protection forest are:

Table 4-1-2 Types and species of afforestation in Hekou District of Dongying City

Types Species Site of afforestation Ecological protection  Poplar  Along the road forests  Fraxinus chinensis  Along the canals and Roxb rivers  Willow  Farmland as  Silver chain windbreaks

Ecological-economic  Apple On farmland or saline forests  Jujube wasteland

In the SA field survey, we collect villagers’ opinions about the trees and scored the ecological trees (from 0 to 5). The table below shows the average of results.

Table 4-1-3 Scores of Trees by farmers

Tree Poplar Fraxinus chinensis rosb Willow Silver chain Score 4.5 2.96 2.77 2.22

The interviewed farmers think the poplar could survival easily, grow fast and it does not need intensive fertilization and irrigation. So it is suitable for Hekou district most. Fraxinus chenensis rosb has strong alkali-resistance and could stand drought, which will be planted in saline area in farmers’ opinions.

In the SA survey, we found that in Hekou district, about 90% forests are mono-species forests, and 10% forests are mixed forest of poplar and tamaricaceae. Though the ecological function of mixed forest, local people don’t like to mix tamaricaceae in poplar forest, since it has lower economic incentives.

According to the group interview, the main economic trees of Hekou district are apple and jujube. Farmers were asked to score their preference to these trees. Apple was scored 4.1 and jujube was scored 3.0. Farmers preferred apple because:

 The ecological condition in Dongying is suitable for apple growing. The accumulative temperature, sunshine and soil features provide an unique ecological conditions for producing good quality apples. In addition, local government also provided preferential policy for promoting the sector development;  Apple is easier to manage because farmers have long years experience and apple trees have high resistance to diseases and pests;

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 The market price of apple is competitively good and stable, so that producers can expect constant profit from apple production. Comparing with aplle, jujube is also easy to cultivate, however, the market price of jujube in recent years is changing year by year. In order to avoid this risk, farmers preferred to plant apple;

4.1.2 Analysis of social impacts and resource use restrictions caused by the

SEAP Project

Resettlement and Land Acquisition

According to the SA findings and second hand data collected from the district, the SA team verified that there are no land acquisition demands either by afforestation or other project interventions. Therefore, no household resettlements are applied in the whole area.

Minority Population

According to the second hand data collected from the project counties, very small amount(0.5-1.0 percent) of ethnic minority population were found in all ten counties (district) of the coastal area. There are no ethnic minority communities in all project townships.

General Impacts on farmer’s livelihoods

In general, since most of the selected sites for SEAP project are all saline lands without intensive use by farmers, the establishment of windbreaks on such land by SEAP project will not lead to any resource use restrictions. Therefore, it will not create negative impacts on farmer’s livelihoods. For these wastelands which are already contracted to individual farmer’s households and already be extensively developed or used by contractors, there are might be some negative impacts triggered by restriction of the land resources.

The SA team conducted a set of livelihood analysis during the field survey. Different kinds of HHs (rich HH, medium income HH and poor HH) with different livelihood characteristics might be impacted or restricted differently in the project. Therefore in the first step, the team collected the data and information of different HH’s livelihood characters by interviews and questionnaire. The table below shows the summarized livelihood characters of different HHs.

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Table 4-1-4 Livelihood Characters of Different HH

HH Category Livelihood Character Proportion (%)

Rich HH - Business; 33 - Construction; - Marine production; - Salt manufacturing. Medium income HH - Migrant work, working in the oil 50 factories and processing industries - Fruit tree planting; - Fishery; - Farming. Low-income HH - Farming; 17 - Migrant work.

As shown above, we concluded following findings and observations related to the impacts of SEAP:

- Rich HH’s income sources are not much relying on natural resources of the community, so they are least relevant to the impacts on livelihood resource use from the project. However, they could enjoy the improvement of the ecological environment. - Based on the analysis in the table above and HH socio-economic data6, the SA team found that economic tree crops planting might be one of the major income sources for medium income HHs, and they are most relevant to the project. So they pay much attention to the selection of the tree species and project implementation. As analyzed above, farmers prefer poplar as ecological tree and apple as economic tree, and they have sound grounds for the choices. Therefore, the SA team recommends that in planning and implementing the project, medium in come forest households should be the major negotiation partners and their incentives and preferences should be taken into account. - Low-income HH’s major income source is farming, and we also found that they do not own large forestland7, so the afforestation activity is not so relevant to them. However, since the employment opportunity in the project could provide some income opportunities, it is recommended to give the priority to low income households by hiring the labors for afforestation and post planting maintenance.

Afforestation in collective owned land

In the coastal area most of the collective or community owned wastelands and saline lands with lower vegetation coverage and lower production potential and are still not yet contracted to individual households.

6 All the HH socio-economic data is collected by HH questionnaire in the village survey. 7 Based on the HH questionnaire collected in village survey.

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Ecological afforestation in these community owned lands can significantly improve the local environment which can benefit all villagers, the rich, the medium income and the poor will be equally benefited from the ecological improvements. Besides, by contracting these wastelands or established forest plantations to the individual households or groups of households can create long term economic benefits by thinning the tree, part of the benefit should be paid to the village committee, so that individual households who do not contract the wasteland can also be benefited. However, the poor households who are not able to participate in the project will have less benefit comparing with the HHs who directly participate in the project. The SA survey also found that the low-income HHs paid much attention to whether they can get economic benefits in a short term, whilst the rich and the medium income HHs more concern the long term economic return and benefits. In addition, their competence to participate in the project is higher than the low-income households. In average, they may know more about the project than the poor, which also result in the more participation and communication between them. So the project should introduce countermeasures to enhance low-income HHs’ participation in the project, such as support lower income and small forest households building their cooperatives to put their land use right as share for the plantations.

Households, including village leaders, who are able to contract the community owned lands for participating in the SEAP should be the major negotiation counterparts in designing the types and patterns of the afforestation. However, medium income and lower income households should be also invited to the consultation and negotiation.

Afforestation in individual contracted forestland

Windbreaks belt and economic forests are mainly planted on the household contracted farmlands. Therefore, the land use right holders of these contracted lands should be selected as major target group and beneficiaries of afforestation under voluntary basis. According to the HH wealth ranking results, households who contracted the farmland in average mount are mainly classified as medium income and lower income households. In case that the SEAP will change the existing land use pattern, farmland windbreaks and economic tree plantations might mainly impact the livelihoods of medium income and lower income HHs. The restrictions on land utilizations, in terms of time and change of the vegetations types might create negative impacts on their HH income in a certain period.

In addition, ecological forests may also be planted on the individual contracted wasteland or saline lands with lower productivity in the coastal area. Households, who contracted the less productive wasteland from the communities in 1990s, are normally rich households. The SEAP project is an attractive incentive for them to reforest their less productive wasteland. They should be the major partner for consultation and negotiation. For these rich HHs, they are not too much concerning about the short term economic return, but they have expectation to the long term return.

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4.1.3 Social Risk Analysis

The implementation of the project should avoid the potential social risks and plan countermeasures for them. Based on the analysis above, the SA team developed a social risk analysis framework as shown in the table below.

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Table 4-1-5 Different Project Activities’ Impacts and Social Risk Analysis

Project Activity Impacts on community Impacts on HHs Possible social risks - Large scale and centralization of - Improve the environment; - Lack of economic incentives for management could cut the cost of - Long term economic return for contractors, so that some of wastelands afforestation, and generate great the contract HHs if the might not be contracted to HHs. These Afforestation in ecologic benefit; governmental policy allow lands must be afforested by SEAP project collective wasteland - Make best use of community land restricted harvesting and managed by the village committee; resources; - Inputs of labor force and fund in short term - Increase the income of community; might be too much for the community - Conserve water and soil. - Improve the environment; - Improve the vegetation of the land - Possible conflict between SEAP project and - Conserve water and soil. - Increase income in long term; farmer’s anticipated economic benefit; Afforestation in - Since the scattered individual forests, it is individual hard for farmer to run large scale of contracted forestation; forestland - The quality of afforestation can’t be guaranteed.

- Improve the survival rate of trees; - Provide some employment - Some farmers, especially disadvantaged - Provide some employment opportunities for some HHs who groups like women and the poor, do not opportunities for disadvantaged groups are interested to be contracted for have the necessary technologies of the Maintenance in the community. maintenance ; forest management.

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According to the qualitative findings from the above table, we can highlight following important issues:

- The area of afforestation in collective forestland is very large, and the inputs of labor force and fund in short term might be very high, which is a challenge for the community. With the development of economy in China, the cost of labor force in rural area is as high as 60 Yuan per day8. So additional cash credit from local banks might be needed by the households who contract large afforestation areas; - For afforestation in individual contracted forestlands, since the scattered places of the forestlands. It is hard for unified management, and this might increase the costs. So we recommend facilitating the establishment of farmer’s forestation cooperative which could manage the forestation together to reduce the cost. - The quality of afforestation in individual contracted forestland also deserves many attentions. Due to the disadvantages of technology and fund inputs compared with the collective forestland, there might be some risks in quality of the afforestation in individual contracted forestland. So the SA team recommends to provide technical training and services to these stakeholders; - The project could bring some employment opportunity for the opportunity. In order to alleviate the gap between the rich and the poor, we recommend giving the poor priority in employment if they are as qualified as others. But the disadvantaged groups do not have technology as much as other groups, so we suggest provide technical training for them.

8 The price might be different in different places, but it is more than 50 yuan a day at least.

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4.2 Re-vegetation in Degraded Mountainous Areas

As second afforestation component, for the re-vegetation of the degraded mountainous area of Shandong Province, the plantations will be implemented in 18 counties (districts) of 7 prefectures in the central part of the province.

Table 4-2-1 Project Location of Re-vegetation of Degraded Mountainous Areas

Project Prefecture County Project Prefecture County (district) (district) Weifang Qingzhou Laicheng District Tai’an Culai Weicheng Xintai District Re-vegetation Zhucheng Re-vegetation Dongping of Degraded Gaomi of Degraded Donggang Mountainous Mountainous Disrict Areas Ji’ning Areas Lashan District Zoucheng Sishui Ju County Rushan Mengyin Total 3 9 4 9

Vegetation degradation and soil and water erosion are the major problems existing in these mountainous areas. To rehabilitating the degraded vegetation the SEAP project will establish ecological protection forests, including fruit trees and other economic forests in areas with better site conditions. Mixed forests of arbor, shrub and lianas will be planted in areas with bare rock and difficult for afforestation.

4.2.1 Proposed Project Activities in Central Hilly and Mountainous Region

In this component the SEAP project will support to establish mixed forests and shrub vegetation on some 37,000 hectares in highly degraded hill sides with a very shallow soil surface coverage in central hilly and mountainous region. According to the local forestry bureau, most of these areas are currently unused wastelands. Through planting tree and shrub combined with a rigorously enforced protection and rehabilitation countermeasures, such as banning livestock grazing and restriction of forest product harvesting, introducing multi-story vegetation with grasses, herbs and shrubs, etc. for reducing soil and water erosion and improving the ecological environment.

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The SA team conducted the SA field survey in Zhucheng County and Xintai County representing the social economic and ecological conditions of the central hilly and mountainous region.

4.2.2 Major Findings in Zhucheng County

Located in the central-eastern part of Shandong Province Zhucheng county is under administration of Weifang Prefecture. The project will support Zhucheng County to establish 2,000.4 hectare ecological forest in 13 townships, including Mizhou, Longdu, Shunwang, Zhigou, Jiayue, Shiqiaozi, Xiangzhou, Changcheng, Baichihe, Xinxing, Linjiacun, Taolin and Huanghua. With this project, Zhucheng County attempts to increase the forest vegetation, improve the ecological environment in rural areas and farmers’ livelihoods as well.

The project supported afforestation in Zhucheng County is all for water and soil conservation. Major proposed indigenous varieties include black poplar, black pine, arborvitae, tea and Chinese chestnut and so on. For different types of lands, different trees will be planted. See the table below.

Table 4-2-2 Afforestation Models in Zhucheng County

Land Type Main Tree Species Bluestone Mountain Arborvitae Apricot or Peach tree

Sandrock Mountain Black Pine, Chinese chestnut, tea; quercus, Melia acedarach Linn

Plain in hilly area Robina Hilly area Rhus typhina, walnut tree, persimmon tree or Cotinus coggygria

Plain area Black poplar, paulownia, elm, willow, Ailanthus, apricot, pear or peach tree

Saline land Ash tree, Melia acedarach Linn, jujube

The SA team selected four project villages for carrying out the social assessment: Daheilonggou Village and Tanjiazhuang Village in Longdu Township, Caosi Village and Xishanpo Village in Huanghua Township. All these four villages have all afforestation models as abovementioned and their socio-economic features are typical to represent the degraded hill and mountainous areas of Zhucheng County.

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In the SA survey, the SA team investigated the farmers’ opinions about the relevant stakeholders’ roles and impacts of the SEAP project. The table below summarizes the results.

Table 4-2-3 Stakeholder Analysis

Stakeholder Role in the Project Expectation for Measure to Ensure the Project their Benefit 1 Community Level Village - Mobilize all - Improve the - Implement the fund officials farmers; village delivery and project - Coordinate the environment; as planed. different parts - Increase the to ensure the income of the implementation village; . - Improve their reputation. Women - Major - Increase the - Involve them in the participants. income. designing and consultation - Provide relevant training to women ;

Poor HH - Participants in - Increase the - Invite them to the forest income. consultation management; - Provide relevant training; - Sign contract with them.

Medium - Participants in - Increase the - Major stakeholders income HH forest income. for the SEAP management project and seedling - Provide relevant cultivation. training; - Sign contract with them. - Introduce high quality trees.

Rich HH - Invest in the - Increase the - Sign contract with project; income. them. - Contractors of the project.

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Stakeholder Role in the Project Expectation for Measure to Ensure the Project their Benefit 2 Township Level Governor - Organize and - Increase the - Deliver the fund as coordinate the forestland; planed, and give project. - Keep water and priority to soil. disadvantaged townships.

Forest Station - Cultivate - Implement the - Clarify the seedling; project responsibilities as - Provide successfully. soon as possible; training for - Deliver the fund as plantation and planed. management; - It is the major executive organization. Forest - Provide - Implement the - Clarify the Technician relevant project responsibilities and technical successfully. rights as soon as service and possible; training. - Increase the salary.

3 County Level Forest Bureau - Major - Implement the - The province executive project project office and organization in successfully; relevant county level - Introduce more departments of the projects. county government should deliver the fund in time as planed;

Seedling - Seedling - Accomplish the - Provide relevant Nursery cultivation. project training; successfully; - Sing the contracts. - Increase the income. Financial - Work for the - Accomplish the - Earmark the fund in Bureau successful fund project this project. delivery. successfully. Development - Supervise the - Accomplish the - Coordinate relevant and Reform project project departments for the

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Stakeholder Role in the Project Expectation for Measure to Ensure the Project their Benefit Commission implementation successfully. successful . - Contribute to implementation of the local the project. development.

Resettlement requirement

According to the results of reviewing the social-economic second hand data and interview with officials of county forestry bureau and community survey, all proposed project supported afforestation activities don’t need relevant infrastructure construction, therefore, additional land acquisition will not applied in the project areas, un-voluntary household resettlement is not required.

Ethnic Minority Population in the project area

There is no ethnic minority community all project counties. The county and township second hand data indicates that there is very small amount of ethnic population in the 18 project counties in the central mountainous region. In Zhucheng County, one of the selected two SA survey counties, ethnic minority population makes only 0.4% of the total population. More than 50% of the ethnic population is Hui Minority.

Assessed Impacts of afforestation in the collective owned and individual contracted lands

According to the data provided by county forestry bureau, the total proposed SEAP afforestation land area in Zhucheng County is 2000.4 ha which is fully owned by the communities, of which about 70-80% of these lands have been contracted or auctioned to the individual households in 1982 and middle 1990s. There is no state owned land in the county. This collective owned forestland tenure means that community leaders and individual households who have contracted wastelands and intend to contract the community wastelands are the major target group of the SEAP project, they should be the major negotiation and consultation partners in designing the SEAP afforestation types and forest management patterns.

As the rural land tenure reform and establishment of the market economy, income sources and livelihoods features of the rural HHs have been diversified and the average household incomes are also significantly different from each other. These different household social-economic features determined that same project intervention activities will have different impacts on different HHs in terms of contribution and restriction to household in come increase, employment opportunity and so on. Table 3-2-4 and Table 3-2-5 present major income sources and HH social economic features and their potential to participate in the SEAP project.

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Table 4-2-4 Income Sources of Different HH in Zhucheng County

HH Major income sources Proportion (%)

Rich HH - Business; 15.0 - Animal husbandry, verify which animals, goats, swine? Which HH raising animals, poor, medium, or rich HH? ; - Overseas work;

Medium income HH - Economic crop production; 72.5 - Migrant work; - Small business;

Low-income HH - Farming; 12.5 - Migrant work;

Through the group interview and household semi-structured interview, the SA team found out a couple of social-economic factors related to the potential participation capacity of high, medium and low income households (see table 4-2-5). These factors are:

 Number of available labor forces in the family  Individual competence and skills in management of the forest resources  HH income and potential investment capacity to the forestation;  Land resource held by the households or potential and capacity for contracting collective owned lands

Table 4-2-5 Socio-economic Characteristics of Different HHs in Zhucheng City

Item Rich HH Medium income Poor HH HH Number of Labor Force 2.5 2 Less than 1 (averagely) Middle school at Middle school Middle school at least, and most are at least. most, and some Education high middle school. are elementary Individual school even Competence illiterate. Skills for High Relatively high Lower forest management

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HH Income (averagely) More than 50,000 15,000 – 50,000 Less than 15,000 yuan yuan yuan HH investment capacity High Relative high Lower Contracted land and capacity High Medium Low of contracting collective owned land for afforestation Potential and capacity to High for the HHs Relatively high Low participate in the SEAP who contracted land for the HH who project amount of collective have contracted lands in 1990s collective land

These factors as presented in Table 4-2-5 are interlinked with each other and directly affecting HH’s behavior to the recommended project interventions. As a general conclusion, the amount of forestland and wasteland already contracted by or the potential capacity to contract collective land of individual households are major factors determining the individual behavior to the project. High and medium income households have shown higher interest to participate in the project, whilst lower income and poor households are less interested in the project due to their limited land resource and lower overall capacity to participate in the recommended project activities.

Table 4-2-6 summarized the SEAP impacts envisaged by different types of households based on the findings of the group interviews carried out in four SA pilot villages in Zhucheng County.

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Table 4-2-6 Different Project Activities’ Impacts on Different HHs

Project Activity Rich HH Medium income HH Poor HH Afforestation in Improve the Improve the Improve the Collective Forestland environment, conserve environment, environment, conserve water and soil, and conserve water and water and soil, and develop multi-business soil, and develop develop employment based on forestland. multi-business based in multi-business on forestland. based on forestland. No economic impact on But the grazing might rich HHs depending on be impacted. non-agricultural income Afforestation in Improve the living Improve the living Improve the living Individual Contracted environment, increase environment, environment, increase Land the income. increase the income. the income. Seedling Production Provide seedlings for Increase the income Increase employment the project and increase from providing opportunity in the incomes. seedlings. seedlings production. Forest Management Reduce the Reduce the Increase the management cost. management cost. employment opportunities and incomes from forest management.

Analysis of possible social conflicts

In Zhucheng City, the SA team conducted a social risk analysis based on the current land tenure and the proposed SEAP project interventions. Generally speaking, social risk means the possibility of benefit loss for a certain group, especially for disadvantaged groups, such as women and poor people. As analyzed above, this project will impact the poor people differently from the rich people, and we also found that under the condition that women are main labor force in rural area, so the project should pay attention to women.

Same with the impact analysis, in Zhucheng City, we mainly focus on four project activities, namely Afforestation in Collective Forestland, Afforestation in Individual Contracted Land, Seedling Production and Forest Management. We firstly analysis the positive and negative impacts of the project activities and in the villages, we conducted the three kinds of group interviews, including man group interview, woman group interview and village official interview. Generally speaking, the results are similar and we also pay specialized attention to the differences in different groups. The table below shows the conclusion of the three kinds of group interview, though special findings are marked.

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Table 4-2-7 Estimated Positive and Negative Impacts of SEAP Project Positive Impact Negative Impact Countermeasure Activity Afforestation Conserve the Restrict or ban the Determine the in Collective water and soil, existing land use, such grazing area for Forestland and improve the as grazing and animal husbandry environment, collecting fuel woods , which lay a good might reduce the HH Define other foundation for income from animal compensation development of husbandry especially countermeasures by tourism business. for poor HHs. consultation Afforestation Increase the Will change the land Consultation with in Individual afforestation and use pattern; relevant stakeholders Contracted income. on the project Land Restrict the use of land recommended models resource in first three and follow up unse of to four years, so it the forest resource might reduce the HH income during the Coordinate the land period reasonably, introduce high quality seedlings. Seedling Ensure the No negative impacts Coordinate the land Production quality of reasonable, and train seedling and seedling producers to reduce some cost. ensure the seedling quality. Forest Ensure the The employment of Give priority to poor Management survival rate and workers in forest people in and therefore can management will cause employment and maintenance reduce unit costs some competition. provide training to of afforestation Village officials might ensure the be in trouble for the management quality, distribution of work especially for women. opportunity. And woman might be disadvantaged since they do not have well technologies.

As shown above, the negative impacts are mostly about poor HHs and HHs with animal husbandry, and we also found that women are not more disadvantaged than men in this analysis. So the social risks analysis mainly pays attention to poor HHs and animal husbandry HHs, and of course, gender is always the issue which deserves

38 SEAP Report on the Social Assessment special attention. The social risk analysis could be seen in the table below.

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Table 4-2-8 Social Risk Analysis Project Impact on the Potential Social Countermeasure Activity Community Risk Afforestation Conserve the water Reduce the grazing - Consultation with in Collective and soil; improve area, which might relevant Forestland the environment impact negatively stakeholders who which lays a the HHs which keep are interested to foundation for the living on animal participate in the development of husbandry, and the project tourism business. investigation found - Determine grazing most of them are areas for them. poor HHs. - Introduce certain percentage of Lack of incentive of economic crops farmers to participate within the sites where the sites conditions are suitable Afforestation Conserve the water Lack of incentives - Consultation with in Individual and soil; improve for farmers since HHs to ensure that Contracted the environment they can not have they will Land which lays a economic return voluntarily foundation for the during the first 3-4 participate in the development of years after the SEAP project tourism business. establishment of the - Agree on the Increase the plantations certain percentage income sources. of economic tree crops on the sites where appropriate for economic tree crops Seedling Increase the Occupy some lands. Village official should Production afforestation for coordinate the land some time, provide distribution and avoid employment the conflict. opportunity. Forest Provide some Women and poor Give priority to Management employment people might be in women and poor opportunity. disadvantages in the people in employment competition of the and provide training employment, for them. because that they do not master the

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technology very well.

Therefore, based on the analysis above, we could find that in this project the potential social risks include: a) In afforestation in collective forestland, the grazing will be forbidden, which will shut some income sources for some animal husbandry HHs. Besides, the SA team found that most of these animal raising HHs who rely on harvesting fodder and grazing are poor HHs. So this might affect their HH income. So the SEAP project should apply some countermeasures for compensating the restrictions. Base on the participatory interview, the SA team found that villager thought it was necessary to allocate some areas for animal grazing. Of course this might involve some land distribution and might cause some conflict between HHs. But all villagers believe that this is a good way to solve the problem. Beside, the SEAP project should support village officials and farmers’ representatives to allocate part of the community lands as grazing areas. b) Forest management will provide some employment opportunities. But the opportunities are limited as large supply of the labor force in rural area. Besides, the forest management does not need much physical work, so women and old men could do it. However, since the forest management might need some technical skills, so these people might not be able to do it without training. So if the project doesn’t give priority to women and poor people, they might be marginalized when competing for the employment. And if the project can not train them, the quality of forest management could not be ensured. The project should firstly give priority to women and the poor people for promoting their involvement, and secondly train them to ensure the work quality.

4.2.3 Findings in Xintai County

Geographically Xintai County is located in the central mountainous region of Shandong Province and administratively under Tai’an Prefecture. Ca.5700 ha degraded mountain land is proposed by the county for establishing ecological forests to be supported by the SEAP. .

SA survey has been carried out in Beizhan Village and Shangbaoyu of Village of Longting Township, Yanzhuang Village and Zhifang Village of Wennan Township. All four villages are located in the hilly and mountainous area.

According to the discussion with local technicians and governmental officials, the core problem related to ecological forests is that the vegetation of the waste hills and lower mountains has been degraded, surface soil layer is eroded. The main causes for this are:

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- Lack of road to the remote mountains - Lack of money to plant trees - Too much plant diseases - The leaders of township are lack of interesting in planting trees because they regard is as a heavy burden to defend the forest from fire. - It is difficult to protect state owned forest lands due to the individual use of these lands, i.e. livestock grazing.

Proposed species for re-vegetation of the degraded hills and mountain lands

Following major species have been proposed by Xintai County for ecological forest plantations:

(1) Ecological forests

 Platycladus Orientalis  Pinus thunbergii  Robina;  Poplar trees

(2) Ecological Economic Forests

 Walnut  Persimmon  Peach

According to the local forestry technicians interviewed these proposed species are all local indigenous varieties and seedlings are locally available.

Involuntary Resettlement Requirement

According to the pre-feasibility study report and data provided by the county forestry bureau, for establishment of the degraded hill and mountain protection forests no extra civil engineering projects are needed. Therefore involuntary resettlement measures (World Bank OP 4.12) will not applied in the county.

Ethnic Minority Population

According to the social economic data collected from Xintai County, the ethnic minority population in Xintai County is 16700, making up about 1.2% of the total population, consisting of 12 minority nationalities, of which the Hui makes up about 98% of the total minority population. However, the minority population is very scattered in the whole county, and the ethnic population is well integrated into the local communities. There is no ethnic minority population in four SA pilot villages. According to Xintai County Forestry Bureau, there is no ethnic minority village in the

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SEAP project area.

Assessed Impacts on Different Stakeholders at Community Level in Xintai County

Alike in other SA pilot counties, all farmers in the surveyed villages welcomed the SEAP project, farmers recognized the potential functions of the project in improving the vegetation of degraded hilly mountains. However, the SA team also found that the SEAP will have some impacts on the livelihoods of farmers.

Traditionally, the communities in the hills and mountain areas had relied on collecting firewood for household use from the hills till almost 20 years ago. According to memory of the elders, local families were not used to using coal for cooking and heating, though they could have access to coal locally. In most time, they cut branch of the trees or brambles for households heating and cooking. They knew those kinds of behavior would damage the forests because they always dug and collected turf as fuel. Besides the damage caused by people, animal grazing in the hilly mountains was another cause for vegetation degradation.

The situation and farmers’ behavior of using the forestland resources have gradually changed in past 20 years. Several factors contributed to this change and improvements:

- Since 1990’s the local economy has been improved obviously, while using coal as fuel becomes popular; - The local government implemented the forest protection law and regulations, so that the over use of the forest resources has been gradually controlled; - Household income increase due to the improvement of agricultural productivity and diversified income sources allowed households to purchase coal for household fuel; . - Construction of household based biogas facilities which were subsidized by the government, reduced the dependence to the coal and firewoods.

For example, in a survey pilot village called Shangbaoyu Village which belongs to Longting Township, Xintai County, about HHs among all of the 428 HHs of the village are still partly relying on firewood, the others are mainly using coal. There are around 100 HHs in this village using bio gas generated by using the crop and animal by products.

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Shangbaoyu Village has a special product model. Most of the families have peach garden, while they plant peanut and lily. Lily is a perennial crop, its flowers can be sold for cash income. Every year the peach tree need pruning 2 times and the pruning produce lots of branch and leaves for peach tree and those can be used as fuel. At the same time, the lily flowers also need pruning, and the pruning also can produce lots of branch which also can be used as firewood. In the winter, local families may use dried stalk and leaves of peanut as firewood. However, because of the development of local economy, most of the local families gradually changed to use coal as household fuel. So the pruned branches from peach garden and shrubs growing in ridge of the farmland are plenty enough to provide firewood for less and less HHs who still rely on firewood.

Interviewed officials of the local forestry department pointed out that afforestation on collective land had the advantage of having better seedling quality and planting the trees according to the technical standard and the unified planting can save labors.

Comparing with villages with higher per capita income, the SEAP project will have more sensitive social conflicts or impacts on households livelihoods, since most of HHs’s incomes are still relatively high depending on agriculture and forests, also the HH fuel is still partly depending on collection of the tree branches.

Findings in Beizhan Village

Beizhan Village is located in north-eastern part of Xintai town with about 5 km. Due to the convenient transportation conditions, the economy has been well developed in the pat twenty years. Farmers’ per capita annual income in the village is from 8,000 to 10,000 Yuan. The group interview results showed that all groups highly assessed the impacts of SEAP for improving the ecological system and community environment. Since their income is mainly depending on the non-agricultural and forest activities, they think the SEAP project will not have any negative impacts on their income and livelihoods. This has been verified by the findings from Beizhan Village of Longting Township. The high per capita income of the village is mostly generated from non agricultural and non forestry activities, such as household based manufacturing oil painting brushes. Agriculture income is less than 30% in the total household income. Existing poplar forests are very well conserved. Farmers have shown great interest to participate in the project since they think this will greatly improve the local environment and without any negative impacts on their income and livelihoods.

There are about 250 mu barren mountains in the northern part of the village which is recommended for planting protection forests with platycladus orientalis, apricot. The protection and maintenance of this barren mountain land has been already contracted to a low income household. The family has already moved to the area and built a house within the compartment.

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For ecological forest plantations, most of farmers scored economic forests, such as apricot with relative high points, they think the economic trees which acclimated to the site conditions and the local micro-climate will grow well and also bring some economic return for the communities and farmer’s households.

As conclusion of the SA survey in Beizhan Village, the SEAP project will have less social conflicts and risks since farmers’ household income is no longer depending on the crops and forestry production.

4. Conclusions made by the SA survey team

4.1 The involuntary resettlement

According to the results of reviewing the pre-feasibility study report, analysis of county social economic data and verification during the SA survey in the pilot counties, no large civil engineering construction projects are required by the afforestation projects. Land acquisition for other infrastructure construction will not be required. Therefore, the involuntary resettlement (OP 4.12) will not be applied in all SEAP project counties. However， the proposed ecological afforestation on both collective managed land and land contracted to individual HHs and follow up maintenance might change the land use patterns and restrict the land resource use of communities and relevant households. As consequence, it may create negative impact on HH income in short term. Such kind of resource use restrictions and negative impact on household livelihoods can be defined as ―involuntary resettlement‖ in a broader sense and therefore triggered the OP 4.12. Countermeasures for compensation to the possible restrictions of the land utilization and farmer’s livelihoods will be worked out by stakeholder consultation 9 and participatory project designing at community level during the planning period.

4.2 Ethnic Minority

The SEAP project will not have negative impacts to small amount of ethnic minority population. According to the social economic data collected from the county level and by retrieving the county statistic data through internet, the SA team could review and estimate the total number and percentage of ethnic minority population in all project counties. The results indicate that there are small numbers of ethnical minorities in all project counties, however, their percentages in the county total population is rather small varying from 0.1-1.5%. In addition, they are widely spread and well integrated into the communities where they populated. No ethnic minority population was found in all 16 SA pilot villages of four counties.

9 Refer to the Policy Framework and Manual of Participatory Consultation and Planning

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4.3 Farmer’s behavior to the SEAP Project Activities

Results of farmer’s group interview indicate that all farmers interviewed recognized the importance of the ecological forest plantations for conserving the community ecological system and controlling the land degradations. Medium and lower income households are partly depending on agricultural and forest income, afforestation in their contracted land and collective land may have negative impacts on their income in a short term and may change their current land use pattern or restrict their land use intensity. This is one of the constraining factors for farmer’s voluntary participation in the SEAP project. So most of them wish to plant ecological economic forests which will have ecological protection function and at the same time also bring economic benefits. Long term economic return from afforestation, subsidy and support to be provided by SEAP project are major incentives for farmers to participate in the project. These findings have been verified by the results of farmer’s group interview.

4.4 Forest land tenure and plantation management pattern

According to the provincial forestry department, in the total 65972.6 ha project sites, state owned land is only 3017 ha, accounting for less 4.0%, collective owned land is 63551.1 ha, making up more than 95% of the total project afforestation area. In collective owned land, about 33077 ha has been contracted to individual farmers and groups of farmers’ households, making up 52% in collective owned land, 30473 ha, (48%) is still managed by the administrative villages. The current land tenure feature determined the consultation partners of each type of selected afforestation land. Following stakeholders should be the major consultation partners:

 Large number of individual farmers’ households who hold the land use right;  Community leaders and farmer’s households who are interested to participate in the ecological and economic forest afforestation activities or HH who are interested in contracting with the villages for maintenance of the planted trees;  Groups of farmers and investors who already contracted the wasteland for development;

Major issues to be consulted with different stakeholders should be:

 In selection of afforestation sites;  Plantation types, pure forests or mixed forests, comprehensive afforestation, including shrubs and other crops, etc.  Arrangement for afforestation;  Seedling production and supply;  Sub-contracting arrangement;  Discussing the follow-up maintenance measures;

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Table 4-4-1 Land tenure and consultation counterpart for SEAP Project

Item Directly managed by Village collective Contracted individual HH state farm managed and farmer’s groups Area (ha) 2421 30473 33077 % 4.0 46 50 Major State forest farms Village leaders and Farmers who hold the land consultation farmers who are through contract and counterpart interested to contract auction the lands

Data source: Shandong Forestry Department

4.5 Possible Social Risk that might be caused by project interventions

Since most of the selected afforestation land is collective owned non-arable barren mountains or wastelands in the coastal area, there will be no resource conflicts with the crop production. According to provincial forestry department, more than 90% of the selected lands for afforestation are mainly barren mountains in the central region, saline land in coastal region. These lands are not intensively utilized by farmers and communities. Therefore the social risk of SEAP afforestation in the collected owned and individual contracted land is manageable through interactive consultation with relevant stakeholders, i.e. community leaders, farmers’ representatives and individual households who contracted or auctioned the lands by the end of 1990s.

SA findings indicated that the ecological afforestation and follow up maintenance of the ecological plantations will not create significant economic benefit for the communities and individual households in short term, but farmers concern about the economic benefit when they decide to join the SEAP project. In addition, to ensure the ecological protection functions of the ecological plantations and to conserve the soil surface after planting some conservation countermeasures will be introduced, to certain extend this might also restrict the utilization of lands and further create impacts on land holders from 3 to 4 years after planting.

For ecological economic forest plantations, there will be expected economic benefits from the land contractors and land use right holders who have already contracted large forest lands in the 1990s. These farmers will be the major consultation and negotiation counterparts for the SEAP Project since they have the legal power to do so according to the recently implemented land tenure reform policy. However, the small and individual land holders are not competitive for contracting the plantations. There might be a risk that the poor and small farmers in the mountainous area will be marginalized in contracting the ecological economic forest plantations. Cooperatives

47 SEAP Report on the Social Assessment or association of small farmers’ households can make the small households stronger. In addition, the land use right held by small households can be transferred to the large contractors as shareholding, so that later on they share the possible benefits from the plantations. These small land holders should be involved in the consultation process in order to ensure that the land use right transfer with shareholding arrangement can be applied in the SEAP project.

Table 4-2 Social Risk Assessment for different types of forest land

Land typology Related stakeholders Possible social conflict Collective owned land not yet  Community leaders  Changes of current land contracted to the individual  Individual households utilization types may users who are interested in restrict the existing contracting the land utilization of these  Farmers’ group wastelands, and therefore  Small amount of low affect the user’s income HHs who are livelihood in short term currently using these  May create social collective wastelands for disparity among different grazing or other income types of households; related activities Collective land already  Farmer’s households who Objective conflict: contracted to individual HHs already and other users contracted/auctioned  Government: ecological waste land conservation as priority  Group of HHs who  Farmers: economic contracted and managed benefit as priority the land resource together  The two objectives might be conflicted with each other,this may lead to the failure of the SEAP project if stakeholders are not voluntarily participated in the project

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5. Recommendations for designing the SEAP project

5.1 Participatory Consultation with the community stakeholders10

Analysis in chapter three and chapter four indicated that major social conflicts and resource use restrictions might mainly occur in the collective owned and individual contracted lands. Participatory stakeholder consultation-PSC is an effective instrument for social safeguards, especially for mediating and avoiding the possible social conflicts caused by the project interventions. It is also an effective instrument for ensuring free and voluntary participation of relevant stakeholders. The SA survey has provided a demonstration model for community participatory consultation.

It is therefore recommended by the SA consultant team to carry out systematic PSC during the designing and implementation of the SEAP project. Following PSC steps are recommended by the SA team: (1) Community and HH mobilization to ensure that all relevant stakeholders are well informed about the project objectives and major components as well as the responsibilities and expected benefits of project participants. The mobilization is also a precondition for free application of the households to participate into the project; (2) Identification of relevant stakeholders for different types of the forest land sites. Site-linked stakeholder identification and analysis will be done. The results will be a basis for conducting the stakeholder consultation next step; (3) Consultation with relevant stakeholders on the participation, selection of the tree, agree on afforestation models and post planting maintenance arrangement; (4) On-site designing and verification of the afforestation land with relevant stakeholders and village leaders; (5) Arrangement of signing the participation contract with relevant stakeholders

During carrying out PSC, tools and methods of Participatory Rural Appraisal-PRA are recommended by the SA consultant team. Such as: （1） Community key informant interview, i.e. village leaders, sub-village leaders, farmer’s representatives as consultation partners; （2） Farmers’ group interview facilitated by the surveyors and forestry technicians to discuss and consult on tree species, afforestation models, management patterns, restriction of resource use and relevant compensation countermeasures, etc.; （3） Small village forest planning workshop facilitated by the forestry technicians

10 Refer to the participatory stakeholder consultation and planning guidelines

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（4） Community transect walk and resource mapping for categorizing the land tenure and identifying the problems of the land resources and selecting the project sites;

Forestry officials and technicians from the forestry bureau at provincial and county levels should be major users of these participatory consultation tools during designing or verifying the SEAP project interventions. Following diagram presents the steps and stakeholders for consultation during the project designing period of SEAP:

SEAP project sites

State owned land Collective land P P roject design Forest type: ecological and economic roject design forests; varieties and afforestation types 树种选择, 造林模型, 管护措施

Consultation with land holders on: varieties, afforestation

types and maintenance arrangement

State Farm % Share Hold % Village % Indiv. HH % Group of HH

Participants and Beneficiaries: HHs, village committee, state farm staff, share holders, investors and cooperatives

5.2 Ensuring the participation and benefit of women

In the course of Chinese rural development, most of male labors migrated to urban and industrial areas for cash income, most of women are left behind at home for taking care of households and engaging in farming as major labor force. Therefore, women should be participating in the whole consultation and planning process, as well as in project implementation.

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In order to enable women’s participation, women’s groups should be formed for focus group interview. Female participants invited to the workshops or consultation meetings should be at least 1/3 of the total participants. Women should be consulted in selection of the tree varieties, discussion on afforestation types and post planting maintenance, etc.

The results of women’s group interview should be compared with the results of men groups, the special preferences of women should be considered in designing the project activities.

Women’s participation and benefit from the afforestation activities, seedling production, technical training and technical extension services, etc., should be also ensured through formulation special indicators in the logical framework and project performance measurement framework (refer to logical framework attached to the project design documents)

5.3 The participation and benefit of the poor households

Marginalization of poor and small households in designing and implementing the project might lead to social risks within the communities. As an important instrument of the social safeguard, participatory consultation with poor HHs should be undertaken during the project designing and implementation stage. The SA consultant team proposes following project interventions to ensure the participation and empowerment of poor HH at community level:  Community survey and group interview: Poor and small households should be involved in HH wealth ranking, social impact analysis. Special HH group consisting of poor HHs should be formed for group interview;  Poor HH should be involved in selection of the afforestation sites and selection of the tree varieties and afforestation types for the project interventions in the collective owned lands. The consultation should focus on:  How to include poor and small households into the project;  How can the poor and small individual HHs form cooperatives or associations, so that they, as group of HHs, can be qualified to participate in the SEAP project;  How can the poor HHs be contracted by the project villages to maintain the planted trees;  How can the SEAP ensure the direct involvement of the poor HHs in tree planting and seedling production and supply, so that they will get subsidized salary for their labor contribution;  Since there might be tendency of enlarged social disparity between large and small land holders, to avoid the possible enlarged social disparity between large collective land contractors and small and poor households who are not able to contract the collective land, a stakeholder negotiation and consultation meeting between large collective land contractors and small households should be conducted under facilitation of the county participatory planning facilitation team. Mechanism to ensure that the small households can share the benefits from large contractors will be the major outcome of the consultation. Village

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committee should be also involved in the stakeholder negotiation process, since it will be the major village based mediator body for transferring the benefit from large to small households.  Poor HH should be invited to attend the technical and awareness building training courses to be supported by the SEAP project;  Poor HHs should also be encouraged to form their groups, associations or forestry cooperatives. Technical and financial support should be provided to the capacity building of these farmer’s organizations;  Poor HHs should be represented in the village project implementation group to ensure that they will be benefited from the project implementation. 5.4 Consultation on the countermeasures for reducing the impacts of land use restrictions11

Since the SEAP project afforestation might restrict the land resource use of households who already contracted the land sites and households did not contracted the collective land but graze their animals on the sites, it is recommended that a special consultation meeting should conducted with these possibly affected households. During the consultation following alternative countermeasures for reducing the negative impacts might be considered:

(i) Land holding households: Inform the households who have contracted the wasteland about the resource restrictions and consult how to reduce the restrictions; (ii) Users of the collective land for grazing: during consultation meeting, alternative countermeasures for supporting the affected households to transform the existing open grazing to in-door feeding pattern should be worked out in cooperation with the county animal husbandry bureau or agricultural bureau; (iii) To allocate alternative grazing sites in the villages having large amount of waste mountain or saline lands; (iv) To allocate part of the collective land for fodder production in order to reduce the dependence to the natural grazing.

5.5 Monitoring and Evaluation of Social Impacts and Benefits

(1) Set up Social Impact M&E system In order to ensure the participation and benefit of project households, lower income households and women, a participation and social impacts M&E system should be established at provincial, county and township levels. A bottom-up and participatory monitoring and evaluation-PME is recommended to be established in SEAP project. Major steps of participatory social impact monitoring and evaluation are: a) Conduct HH semi-structured interview or sampled HH questionnaires for assessing the participation and benefits of these HHs; b) Conduct HH group interview (includes women’s group), key informant interview,

11 Refer to the Resettlement Policy Framework-RPF

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assessing the impacts and benefits. Recommended tools are ranking and scoring tools under facilitation of M&E staff; c) Institutional interview at county and township levels for collecting the performance related first and second hand data; d) The collected performance related data and information will be analyzed and integrated at the county level as basis for writing up the Social impact M&E report to be submitted to upper levels. (2) Proposed Indicators for Social Impact Evaluation Following social impact and participation measurement indicators are recommended to be incorporated into the monitoring and evaluation (M&E) system of SEAP project:

a) Total number of households and villages who participated in the participatory consultation and planning process, at least 20% of them are lower income or poor households; b) At least 50% of the households affected by the resource restrictions caused by SEAP interventions participated in the restriction compensation negotiation meeting facilitated by the participatory planning facilitation team; c) Number of HHs who signed the participation contract with SEAP project, of which xx% are lower income or poor households; d) Participation and benefit of women from the project: (i) 40% women representing their HHs attended the participatory consultation; (ii) 30-40% of labors for afforestation and follow up maintenance are women; (iii) at least 50% of the trainees of project provided technical training courses are women. (3) Implementation of the M&E a) Monitoring the participation during the project designing and planning period: Provincial and County PMOs will be responsible for monitoring the participation and efficiency of different stakeholders within the communities； b) Social Impact Monitoring and Evaluation during the project implementation：Social impact monitoring and evaluation should be conducted in parallel to the overall impact monitoring and evaluation. In general, the internal M&E for participation and social impact should be conducted in a continuous dynamic manner. Township M&E agent should be responsible for on-going M&E data collection； c) Semi-annual social impact evaluation should be done based on the collected data, the results of evaluation will be incorporated into semi-annual and annual progress reports. County PMO will be responsible for compiling the internal M&E report and submitting to PPMO for integration；

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6. Annex

6.1 Itinerary of the SA survey

Phase Date Activities Preparation in July 20-31, 2008  Prepare the work plan Beijing  Design the datasheets and questionnaires  Design the outline of SA report  Develop the SA training manual  Attending the inception workshop Training provincial August 16-18,2008  In-door SA methods training Field method team and county exercise staff in one pilot  Prepare the survey county SA survey at county August 20-31, 2008  County survey team preparation and and village levels training  Field survey  Data analysis and documentation Data analysis in September 1-15,  Second hand data document and analysis Beijing 2008  First hand data analysis Draft Report September 16-30, writing 2008 Report revision and October 1-15, 2008 finalization

6.2 Data collected from SA

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