China’s Second Round of Forest Reforms: Observations for China and Implications Globally

This paper provides an overview of recent forest tenure reform in rural China and a summary of findings from a series of surveys and research papers. The research papers cover several broad themes, including the impacts of enhanced policy stability, expanded farmer household forestland holding, and longer contract periods as well as a richer bundle of tenure rights, on farmers willingness to invest in money terms and labor inputs in forestry activities. The tenure devolution process is found to be influenced by the village political environment and by farmers' abilities as well, as outside monitoring and evaluation. This paper concludes by drawing implications from China's experience for international communities under similar trends of forest tenure devolution