Brief cases of FLR in other regions

49 4. Policy and participatory forestry processes in China As a vast land with a huge population and diverse traditions, participatory processes in forestry in China are heavily dependent upon forest protection and ecological improvement while simultaneously supporting local livelihoods. The Chinese Government has formally approved and started to implement the Six Key Forestry Development Programs the Natural Forest Conservation Program, Key Shelterbelt Construction Program, Program for Transforming Farmland into Forests, Desertification Control Program, Conservation of Biodiversity and Nature Reserve Program and Establishment of Fast-Growing Timber Plantations since the 1990s. These six programmes encompass 97 percent of China’s regions in terms of counties, and signal the end of the timber only-oriented forestry era, and the beginning of forest ecosystem restoration and multifunctional forestry in China. In 1998, in an effort to promote forest management activities to prevent forest destruction and further deterioration, the Chinese Government established the National Forest Conservation Program NFCP, which articulated the new forest policy. The central government invested some 17 billion yuan US2.125 billion during 1998 to 2000 for the NFCP Li 2004, and further operation in the second phase 2010-2020 aimed at increasing an additional 600 000 ha in the area, 290 000 000 m 3 stock of forests and providing 443 200 job positions in the target regions. In 1999, another massive programme – the Key Shelterbelt Construction Program – was initiated for the restoration of forest and grassland in Northwestern arable areas where slopes exceed 25° or desertification poses a threat. This programme will cover 22 provinces, and most of them are concentrated in the western part of China. Within the next ten years, this programme is intended to convert an additional 5.33 million ha of marginal farmland to forest land for soil erosion control and to regenerate an additional 39 million ha of forest plantations and natural forests in degraded areas SFA 2010. In this programme, the participatory cost-sharing policy is a core component that involves farmers, their families, researchers and local government officials in addressing forestry problems; scientific cooperation is designed to improve communication between government officials and farmers. Since 2003, a programme for transforming farmland into forests or grassland known as ‘Grain for Green’ has been launched in China. It covers a trial area in 17 provinces and targets control of 22.67 million ha of land affected by soil erosion and 26.67 million ha of sand-affected areas by 2010. The central government offers compensation to farmers who ceded their degraded farmlands for forest restoration; the compensation is intended to equate to the maximum quantity 2.25 tonnes foodhayear they would have obtained from the land, and also provides financial support to cover the cost of reforestation 750 yuanhayear and maintenance 300 yuanhayear. The compensation in the form of grain and cash will last for eight years with the understanding that farmers will be able to generate income from forest production or service functions subsequently. The process is participatory and collaborative, with local communities providing land and being responsible for tending the seedlings. As the first stage of forest restoration, the Six Key Forestry Development Programs incorporated participatory forestry development from the outset and the efforts are still ongoing. The second stage of forest restoration is characterized by a general forestry policy of compensation for public and ecologically beneficial forests. In 2009, with governmental support, the State Forestry Administration established the Forestry Ecological Compensation Fund, which awards compensation for public ecological service forests; the standard was 75 yuanhayear initially, but was raised to 225 yuanhayear in 2013. In this context, Chinese Government support has reached 14.9 billion yuan per year. In 2013 the new National Forest Tending Regulation that adopted the MFFM concept was enacted; it included a training and monitoring programme nationwide. It addresses most state forests and supports all multifunction-oriented forest tending and silviculture operations in both natural forests and plantations. It has been redesigned to allow public benefits to predominate. It is partly supported by government funding at about 2 000 yuanhayear and more than 6.2 billion yuan was spent for tending or silvicultural activities in public welfare-oriented multifunctional forests nationwide in 2013. This policy will be slowly elevated step-wise on a yearly basis. The FLR concept reported in this paper and its technical tools for implementation are characterized by a technical framework of multifunctional zoning, CNFM planning and stand operation regimes. This approach is likely to meet current needs with the implementation of the new National Forest Tending Regulations. The multifunctional stand operation regime would be a suitable concept for most public ecologically- and socially-oriented forests, as well as those with community or private ownership that intend to participate in the Ecological Compensation Program. All of these FLR policies are government-oriented in character due to the relatively simplified and uniform forest ownership system in China; however farmers and forest residents are encouraged to pursue restoration and maintenance of forest ecological services nationwide. 50 5. Conclusion and future perspectives The FLR thrust in the ECTF supported by the technical framework of multifunctional zoning, CNFM planning and stand operation regimes have been implemented step-wise for the last 15 years. The tentative results show that positive outputs have been obtained at stand and forest levels as discussed in this paper and reported by Stone 2009. A new task of identifying the effects of forest restoration on degraded landscapes is to look for concrete indicators and related methods to measure and present the effects at the landscape level. A systematic sampling system with 238 plots was set up covering all forest area of the ECTF in 2011 and the first remeasurement of this system was only finished in 2013. The reports will come later. A similar study is being carried out for the case studies from Hainan and Hunan provinces. However, the FLR concept and its technical tools are gradually being recognized and applied in different areas of China. Another positive step is that the concepts and techniques of multifunctional forests have been accepted and implemented in the new National Forest Tending Regulation enacted in 2013, and to be released in 2014. We can expect that with the implementation of this technical approach in most Chinese forests with governmental support, forest ecosystems will be improved and forest degradation will be mitigated in the future.