pêmêyê}­ê¦Â£¾¤Ã±ê¢ªª¤ ¢¨¢ Chinese collective forestlands: contributions and constraints GUANGPING MIAO and R. A. WEST Deputy Director, Economy Restructuring Research Division, China National Forestry Economics and Development Research Center (FEDRC), Beijing, P. R. China Research Associate, Forest Trends, Washington, D. C., USA and Associate Fellow, College of Humanities and Development (COHD), China Agricultural University (CAU), Beijing, P. R. 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This system contracts mostly tion era as households may be forced to join a coopera- non-timber forests and fuelwood forests to house- tive, violating the rights accorded them by law. A holds, but the natural or administrative village collec- shareholding scheme may include all or part of a col- tive often retains some control of cutting and product lective forest. If a collective forest has been parcelled sales and the households have an array of schemes for out to individual households, then it is more likely sharing the benefits with the collective (Liu Dachang that the collective forest would not be included in any 2001). There are three primary forms of household one arrangement in its entirety, though this is not an responsibility management for forestlands. The first absolute. sees family plots managed in conjunction with respon- The preceding text highlights some of the more sibility hills. The second is the merger of individually common types of collective forest arrangements. The- contracted responsibility hills into a larger unit. Bene- re is no catchall collective forestry ownership and ma- fits are divided amongst the contributing households. nagement model. Grinspoon’s (2002) research in Si- Membership in this arrangement is not necessarily vo- chuan and Rozelle and Li’s (1998) work highlight the luntary. The third and most common form is simply diversity that exists between provinces, townships household management of the contracted responsi- within in a county, villages within a township, and bility hill (Liu Dachang 2001). even between same-village institutions. The whole A further development was the advent of the Four gamut exists, ranging from instances of county and Wastelands Auction Policy in 1992, whereby indivi- village governmental ownership to household part- duals are permitted to contract and lease degraded nerships to shareholding arrangements. In each cir- lands11. The rights accorded to these lands are similar cumstance, rights, tenure security, decision-making, to those of the family plots: The contractor possesses responsibilities, and distribution of benefits vary. Mo- use rights for the land and the resources developed reover, collective forests must often comply with na- on the land (Grinspoon 2002, Liu Dachang 2001). Ac- tional policies, regardless of ownership, without con- cording to Hyde et al. (2003), individual households sultation, and with little opportunity for recourse. now administer approximately 80 % of collective fo- Therefore ultimately, collective forests are controlled rests. by the central government, but the degree of involve- In addition to the aforementioned tenure arrange- ment varies. In sum, there are so many variations of ments, there is another category of land that is not collective forests in China that the term itself no lon- allocated, leased, or contracted to individual house- ger describes one set of attributes, although policies holds. These areas remain the property of either natu- are frequently formulated and targeted to this catego- ral or administrative villages and are managed by that ry of land. Inevitably with unified policies targeted to village government. This sort of shareholding system such diverse realities, there are many problems, abu- equally divides returns from the forest to villagers ses, and unexpected outcomes, which might be avoi- (Liu Dachang 2001). Liu and Edmunds (2003) report ded if policy were tailored to the ways in which land that this form of management was still present in uses are actually decided and implemented on the each of the fifteen villages in which they conducted ground. their research in Guizhou, Hunan, and Yunnan. Other shareholding schemes exist too. Landhol- COLLECTIVE FORESTS AND THE LAW ders pool their resources, either upon their own ini- tiative or upon the behest of the government, and di- The Constitution of the People’s Republic of China vide returns based upon the initial input. Such arran- addresses the ownership of land and resources and gements are often to supply wood and fibre to state makes the distinction between state and collective and private companies (Liu Dachang 2001). House- land12. The Forest Law of the People’s Republic of holds that voluntarily form cooperative arrangements China addresses forest resources specifically and dif- often retain more of the rights to their resources than ferentiates between state and collective resources, obligatory schemes in which management decisions stating that ,forest resources shall belong to the state, are not made by individual households. These sche- unless the law stipulates they belong to the collective 9 Since the land is designated forestland, rural households are 12 Article 9 declares that ,mineral resources, waters, forests, not permitted to use it for other purposes, such as the culti- mountains, grassland, unreclaimed land, beaches and other vation of food crops, excepting fruit trees (Liu Dachang natural resources are owned by the state, that is, by [all] peo- 2002). ple, with the exception of the forests, mountains, grassland, 10 The available English version mistranslates the title as the unreclaimed land and beaches that are owned by collectives Forestry Law of the People’s Republic of China. We will refer in accordance with the law‘. Article 10 states, ,Land in the to it, more accurately, as the Forest Law of the People’s Re- rural and suburban areas is owned by collectives except for public of China throughout this paper. those portions which belong to the state in accordance with 11 Degraded land is often translated to ,wastelands‘ in English the law, house sites and private plots of cropland and hilly literature. land are also owned by collective (People’s Congress 1999)‘. 285 Guangping Miao and R. A. West (People’s Congress 1998)‘. However, neither law de- rights to forestland resources to join schemes invo- fines the term ,collective‘, thus the ambiguity sur- luntarily. rounding its definition is the root of many ownership Transfer rights were affirmed in law in the Forest and policy conflicts. In addition to these two broad Law of 1998 and the Rural Contracting Law of 2002 property types, the Forest Law defines five classes of and give forest resource owners the right to lease or forests: Protection forests, timber forests, economic contract the resources, though certain restrictions forests, fuelwood forests, and forests for special uses apply (Zhang and Kant 2004). For example, protec- (People’s Congress 1998). tion forests and forests for special uses are excluded from the list of forests for which transfer is permissib- (1) Protection forests aid in water storage, prevent soil le. Other obstructions to unimpeded use, manage- erosion, act as wind blocks, inhibit desert and sand ment, and transfer rights include requirements for encroachment, stabilize river banks, shelter farmland harvesting trees and transportation of logs, as well as, and grassland, and line roadways.