Chapter 2: Overview of Guangxi’s Existing Forest Resource Base 2.1 Introduction This chapter analyses and summarizes official Forestry Bureau data about Guangxi forestry land and timber resources. It gives an overview of the forest inventory system in place in the province and summarizes available data on management category, species, geographic distribution, age class structure, standing volumes and annual harvest levels. It describes some of the main features of the recently launched Fast- Growing, High-Yielding Plantation Programme. In this chapter, we have also attempted to assess, at prefecture level, the area of land which could be made available for future plantations. 2.2 Overview of Guangxi forest inventory system In China, Provincial Forestry Departments are implementing forest inventories often referred to as ‘second level inventories’. The National Forest Inventory which is being coordinated by the State Forestry Administration provides ‘first level’ forest inventory data for the entire country. Provincial forest inventories are being organized for planning and management purposes. The data that they generate are being used to determine logging quota (annual allowable cut). For this purpose data are aggregated at county levels. Like elsewhere in China, Guangxi forest resources fall under two land ownership categories: State-owned land and collectively-owned land. State-owned lands are being managed through a network of State-owned forest farms. These State-owned forest farms have different status depending on the hierarchical level of the government body which manages them (County, Prefecture, Province, Central Government Ministry or Agency). Currently Guangxi Province has 151 State-owned forest farms whose cumulated area and standing wood volume represent respectively 9% and 12% of the provincial totals. There are approximately 10,000 village collective forest farms and in the order of 20,000 family-run forest farms in Guangxi province. Guangxi Forestry Bureau (G.F.B) has a Forest Monitoring Center within its Planning and Financial Division. The Forest Monitoring Center organizes/coordinates forest inventory activities and manages forest inventory data. G.F.B provides up to 30% of the direct costs of forest inventory operations while the remaining is supported by county governments. Guangxi Survey & Design Institute designs the overall inventory technical package, including the forms which are being used to collect data during field surveys. It also trains field staff and processes inventory data. Guangxi province implemented its first inventory in 1990. Since then this assessment has been repeated at regular time intervals: 5 years in State-owned forest farms and 10 years in areas under other types of land tenure. State-owned forest farms update their data on forest resource on a yearly basis during the interval between two consecutive provincial surveys. However these intermediary yearly updates are not passed on at the upper level/not stored in a prefecture or provincial database. Still many county forestry bureaus lack the resource and capacity to maintain adequate forest resources database. All data are collected through ground survey using a temporary sample plot system. Second level forest inventories go systematically through all forest stands with an area above 0.1 hectares (1.5 mu). Stand boundaries are measured, geo-referenced and mapped - at the scale 1: 10,000 - on maps produced by the National Geophysical Information Center. Since 2000, the Forest Survey & Design Institute digitizes stand boundaries on scanned versions of maps produced by the National Geophysical Information Center. These maps have 5 or 10 m elevation contour lines, depending on locations. Digitizing stand boundaries is being done in 11 out of the 14 prefectures of Guangxi. In Hechi, Guilin and Liuzhou prefectures, the Central-South Institute of Forest Inventory managed by SFA is testing an alternative approach - using remote sensing technology (Landsat 7 images). The Forest Survey & Design Institute expects a complete switch to remote sensing technology by 2010, for the entire province. The latest inventory of Guangxi forest resources was carried out in 2004. At the time this report was prepared the corresponding data were still being processed and therefore could not be made available. 2.3 Data sources and definitions All data related to Guangxi forest resources which are reported in this chapter are the official Guangxi Forestry Bureau data of the 1999 provincial forest inventory. The data collection took place in 1999. Data were processed in 2000. Data on Annual Allowable Cut for 2001 and 2003 were provided by Guangxi Forestry Bureau’s Forest Monitoring Center Forest stand is the forest land category where trees have canopy coverage over 20% (category called ‘closed forest stand’ in the maps shown at the end of this chapter). In China forest stands include stands of forest trees (both natural forests and plantations) as well as ‘economic forest’ (essentially tree orchards) and bamboo groves. In other words a forest stand can be a natural forest where conifers and broadleaved trees are mixed, a plantation made of a single tree species, a tree orchard or a bamboo grove. 4 Stands made of forest trees are present in both areas under commercial management and areas for environmental services. Commercial forests are forest stands (either natural or planted) located on forestry land under commercial management and consisting of forest trees (conifers and broadleaved). Forests for environmental services are forest stands (either natural or planted) located on forestry land for environmental services and consisting of forest trees (conifers and broadleaved). The forest land category where trees have canopy coverage below 20% is called Sparsely-stocked forest stand’. The category called ‘Unstocked forest land’ includes areas which have been harvested and not yet replanted, areas where land preparation prior afforestation is being carried out, areas covered with young natural regeneration and areas which have been accidentally burnt. We have called This section analyses the structure of a sub-set of forest stands: those made of forest trees (either natural or planted, single-species stands or mixed stands). ‘Economic forest’ and bamboo grove are not discussed here. Stands made of forest trees are present in both areas under commercial management and areas for environmental services. 2.4 Main land-use types Table 2.1 gives an overview of the distribution among the main land types found in the 14 prefectures of Guangxi province. The provincial breakdown per main land type is as follows: ° Forestry land: 57.45% ° Farming land: 29.66% ° Degraded land: 6.96% ° Waste land: 0.91% ° Inland water: 1.85% ° Urban & other types of land: 3.17% The central part of Guangxi has the highest density/coverage of farming land as shown in Map 2.1. On the other hand, Map 2.2 shows that Hechi prefecture, South- West of Liuzhou, North-East of Guilin, South of Baise, North of Chongzuo and North-East of Nanning have relatively higher density of totally and partially unused land, in comparison to the rest of the Province. The land category called ‘partially or totally unused land ‘was composed by pooling together the area of sparsely stocked forest stands, the shrub area, the waste land area and the degraded land area (mostly bare land). The coverage of ‘partially or totally unused land ‘shown in Map 2.2 is expressed in percent of dry land area (total land area excluding areas of inland water) 5 2.5 Forest resources distribution Table 2.2 summarizes the main features of Guangxi forest resources as reported in the 1999 Provincial Forest Inventory. Data are given for the 14 prefectures and a network of 15 State-owned forest farms under the direct authority of Guangxi Forestry Bureau. Two different figures are given for the percentage of forest cover. These two figures are generated by two different calculation methods: In both cases, the forest cover is expressed in percent of the total land area (dry land + inland water). G.F.B counts as forest cover the cumulated areas of forest stands and shrubs. We have used an approach more in line with the international standards by which only the area of forest stands is taken into account. Difference in forest cover figures due to difference in method of calculation remains minimal for 3 prefectures with relatively abundant forest resources, namely Whuzhou, Yulin and Guigang as well as for Quinzhou and Beihai, two prefectures of the coastal region where plantation development has been particularly important during the last decade. 8 prefectures as well as the State-owned forest farms managed by G.F.B have a forest cover (forest stand cover only) above 40%. These are namely: Wuzhou, Hezhou, Guilin, Yulin and Liuzhou in the Eastern and North-East regions, Quinzhou and Fangchenggang on the coast, and Baise in the West. Masson pine, Slash pine and Chinese fir are important elements of the overall forest cover in the Eastern and North-East regions (see Maps 2.3 to 2.6, 2.9 and 2.10). Chinese fir covers also important areas in the North and the West. Pinus yunnanensis is a common species in Baise prefecture (see Maps 2.11 and 2.12). Eucalyptus dominates the forest cover in the two coastal prefectures of Quinzhou and Fangchenggang (see Maps 2.7 and 2.8). On the other hand, Behai and Chongzuo prefectures have relatively low (below 25%) forest cover (forest stand cover only). Guangxi’s forestry land is divided up into two categories: forestry land for environmental services and forestry land under commercial management. Both types contain forest stands, sparsely-stocked forest stands, shrub land, land recently afforested, land occupied by nurseries and un-stocked forest land. There is approximately 35% more forestry land under commercial management than forestry land for environmental services Maps 2.19 and 2.20 show that in all prefectures, except Fangchenggang and Chongzuo, at least 80% of the area of forestry land under commercial management is made of stands with canopy coverage over 20% (category called ‘closed forest stand’ in the map captions).