Forest condition change, tenure reform, and government-funded eco-environmental programs in Northeast China

Abstract

Northeast China has one of the largest forested areas in China, which provides an important production base for timber and forestry by-products and is significant for maintenance of regional ecological security. This study examined the effects of forest tenure reform and government eco-environmental protection programs on forest condition change using two measures-forest area and stocking volume. Generalized spatial panel auto-regressive models were developed using data on 72 forest farms in Northeast China in 2005 and 2009. The results showed that forest condition change in the region was driven by socio-economic characteristics, geographical conditions, and forest land management policy. In particular, the forest tenure reform and government eco-environmental protection program were found to affect forest condition change. There were also strong spatial effects between neighboring forest farms, suggesting that the forest management policy of one forest farm was correlated with that of neighboring farms. When formulating and implementing forest policy, decision-makers should therefore take account of spatial effects.

Keywords

Forest area; Stocking volume; Spatial autoregressive model; Northeast China

Published in

Forest Policy and Economics
2019, volume: 98, pages: 67-74
Publisher: ELSEVIER SCIENCE BV

SLU Authors

• Huang, Wei

  • Department of Economics, Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences
    

UKÄ Subject classification

Economics

Publication identifier

• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.forpol.2018.09.003

Permanent link to this page (URI)

https://res.slu.se/id/publ/97832