Assessment of the Contribution of Forestry to Poverty Alleviation in the People’S Republic of China
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III Assessment of the contribution of forestry to poverty alleviation in the People’s Republic of China Dai Guangcui* Zhang Sheng* Wen Caiyun* Li Yang* Introduction Poverty is a global challenge and, in China, the spatial distribution of poverty and forests has a high degree of overlap, with poverty incidence higher in mountain areas. The study of forestry’s role in China’s poverty reduction has important practical significance. Forest resources China started with a relative lack of forest resources. In 1978, 30 years ago, the reform and opening-up took place and, in the new century especially, the Chinese government is committed to the protection and development of its forest resources through the full implementation of national key forestry programs (NKFP). Consequently, China’s forest resources continue to be recovered and increased, and the forest ecosystem and environment has gradually improved. Forest coverage has increased from 8.6 percent when the New China was founded (1949) to the current 20.36 percent. According to the 7th National Forest Inventory (NFI) in China (2004-2008) (SFA 2009a), the forest area now covers 195.45 million ha which comprises about 20.36 percent of the country’s total land area. The total standing stock volume totals 14.91 billion m3 and the forest stock volume is 13.72 billion m3. Globally, forest resources in China showed the highest rapid increase. Since the 1970s, China has conducted seven NFIs (Table III.1), which indicate an annual average forest area increase of 1.36 percent, total standing stock annual average increase of 1.29 percent, and forest stock annual average increase of 1.32 percent. Plantations cover an area of 61.69 million ha, ranked first in the world. China has entered a rapid development period for forest resources. Since 2000, relying on the NKFPs, China’s annual new planting area has been more than five million ha. Total forest resources have continued to increase and the multiple functions of forests have been gradually revealed. The supply ability of forest products has been further increased, which has laid a solid foundation for socio- economic development and poverty reduction in forestry areas. * China National Forestry Economics and Development Research Center (FEDRC), State Forestry Administra- tion (SFA), P.R China 77 Table III.1. Summary of past NFI results Total standing stoc k Forest area Forest stock Forest Interval (million m3) (million ha) (million m3) coverage (%) 1st (1973-1976) 9532.27 121.86 8655.79 12.7 2nd (1977-1981) 10260.60 115.28 9027.95 12.0 3rd (1984-1988) 10572.50 124.65 9141.08 12.98 4th (1989-1993) 11785.00 133.70 10137.00 13.92 5th (1994-1998) 12487.86 158.94 11266.59 16.55 6th (1999-2003) 13618.10 174.90 12455.85 18.21 7th (2004-2008) 14912.68 195.45 13720.80 20.36 Source: SFA 2009. Poverty situation The National Bureau of Statistics of China (NBS) defines poverty as a situation in which an individual or a family lacks basic materials and needs, and living standards do not reach acceptable minimum social living standards. The poverty line sets the lowest costs for the necessary consumption of goods or services for people to maintain their basic survival under certain conditions of time, space, and social development stage, also known as the poverty standard. In China, there are two poverty standards or levels. One is the absolute poverty level that is below the standard and is referred to as “extreme poverty.” The other is the relative poverty level and refers to the level above absolute poverty, but with lower income, also known as “low-income population.” The current poverty standard of China was first estimated in 1986 based on consumption expenditure surveys of 67,000 rural households conducted by the NBS. After 1986, it was adjusted according to the changes in the rural price index. In 2009, China’s absolute poverty standard for rural and the low-income poverty standard were integrated into a single new poverty standard, which is about US$180 (RMB 1,196) per year, and equivalent to US$0.5 per day1 net income per capita (Gu Zhongyang 2009). In the implementation of the national poverty strategy in the 1990s, the Chinese government identified 592 national poverty-stricken counties (NPSC)2. From the spatial distribution, most of these poor counties are located in mountainous areas or high altitude mountains. There are 373 poverty counties of concentrated distribution in 13 zones, covering approximately 170 million ha, and affecting 119 million people, including a rural population of 104 million (Jia Ruoxiang 2011). National economy and poverty alleviation Since the start of the reform and opening up in 1978, China’s economy has rapidly grown while rural poverty alleviation and development has also made remarkable achievements. From 1978 to 2009, with China’s annual gross domestic product (GDP) growth at 9 percent, the socio- economic development situation changed from solving the problem of basic living to achieving an almost well-off living standard. According to the preliminary estimates by NBS, China’s GDP totaled US$5,880 billion in 2010 with an increase of 10.3 percent from that in 2009, and accounted for 8 percent of global the GDP, ranking the country second in the world. 1 The exchange rate in 2010 was US$1: US$6.7695. 2 The classification of a national poverty-stricken county is approved by the State Council according to a county’s poor population, net income per capita, GDP per capita, and financial revenue per capita. 78 Figure III.1 . China’s GDP and rural poverty population in 1978-2009 US$ (billion) people (million) 6000.00 300.00 5000.00 250.00 4000.00 200.00 3000.00 150.00 2000.00 100.00 1000.00 50.00 0.00 0.00 1978 1985 1990 1995 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2006 2007 2008 2009 GDP poverty population With the sustained high growth of the national economy, poverty alleviation and development also made remarkable achievements. According to the national poverty standard, the rural poor population was reduced from 250 million in 1978 to 35.97 million in 2009, and poverty incidence went down from 30.7 percent in 1978 to 3.6 percent in 2009 (NBS 2009) (Table III.2). Table III.2. China’s rural poverty standard and poor population (1978-2009) Years Absolute poverty Low-income poverty 1978* 14.77 250.00 30.7 - - - 1985* 30.43 125.00 14.8 - - - 1990 44.32 85.00 9.4 - - - 1995 78.29 65.00 5.4 - - - 2000 92.33 30.00 3.0 127.78 94.22 6.2 2001 93.06 29.27 3.2 128.81 90.30 6.7 2002 92.62 28.20 3.0 128.37 86.45 6.2 2003 94.10 29.00 3.1 130.29 85.17 6.0 2004 98.68 26.10 2.8 136.49 75.87 5.3 2005 100.89 23.65 2.5 139.45 64.32 4.3 2006 102.37 21.48 2.3 141.52 56.98 3.8 2007 115.96 14.79 1.6 157.62 43.20 3.1 2008 157.62 28.41 3.0 176.67 40.07 3.0 2009 176.67 35.97 3.6 176.67 35.97 3.6 Source: “China Rural Poverty Monitoring Report 2009” and other public information. Note: The poverty standards of 1978 and 1985 were estimated according to that of 1986. According to World Bank (WB) estimates in 2008, 67 percent of the global poverty reduction successes over the past 25 years happened in China. The WB indicated that since 1980, China’s population that came out of poverty accounted for 75 percent of the total population that moved out of poverty in developing countries. The extent of poverty reduction in China comprised more than 90 percent of poverty reduction in the world from 1990 to 2002. Although impressive, it must be noted that there is a big difference between China’s poverty standard and the United Nations (UN) standard. Even under the new national standard in 2009 of per capita net income of RMB 1,196 (about US$180 per year, equivalent to US$0.5 per day), this is only equivalent to 40 percent of the UN standard of US$1.25 per day. China’s poverty reduction task is still arduous. 79 During the Twelfth Five-Year Plan period, China will further increase efforts in poverty reduction. In 2011, the government will further raise the poverty standard to US$221.58 net income per capita per year, equivalent to US$0.61 per day (Wang Qian 2010). With this standard, the poor population in China will increase significantly more than in 2009, as will the incidence of poverty. Forestry and poverty China’s poor population is mainly concentrated in the relatively undeveloped western regions, mountainous areas, desert areas, and hilly areas, comprising around 80 percent of the total land area. In the 592 NPSC, hills and mountain counties account for 86 percent (Chen Guojie 2004), located mainly in the western mountain areas, stone mountains, deserts, alpine mountains, the Loess Plateau and other harsh natural environment areas. Meanwhile, the contiguous poverty areas are often in important forest ecosystem function areas, such as grasslands, wetlands, desertification control districts, rocky desertification control areas, biodiversity conservation areas, water conservation areas, and other types of ecological function areas. These are all the forested regions or main areas of forestry ecological construction in China. In terms of distribution, mountain areas where the poor population is concentrated are also the concentrated forest resources distribution areas with 90 percent of forest lands and 84 percent of the forest stock volume.