The Effect Of Collective Forest Tenure Reform In China On Timber Supply In Collective Forest Areas

This dissertation mainly focuses on the effect of collective forest tenure reform in china on timber supply in collective forest areas. By analyzing the definite effects of forest tenure reform on timber supply capacity and on the actual timber production relatively, I attempt to test the story whether the collective forest tenure reform can contribute to promote forest timber supply in collective forest areas and enhance the country's domestic wood supply capacity.Firstly, this paper analyzes the general factors that affect the timber supply. Based on this, I add the general analytical Faustsmann frame with other interesting factors, including the collective forest tenure reform factors and the forest cutting quota system factors, in order to further discuss about the timber supply. By analyzing the different timber-rotation standards which determine the different corresponding wood-cutting times before and after the forest tenure reform, it is revealed that, based on some arguably reasonable assumptions, the timber harvesting time tend to be in advance after the tenure reform, attributing to an increase of short-term timber supply, while the existence of the forest cutting quota system dramatically limits the increase of short-term timber volume. After theoretical inference, a hypothesis has been given:Forest tenure reform indirectly attributes to the increase the forest resources by directly changing behaviors of farmers' investment in forest land, thereby enhancing the long-term wood supply capacity. On the other hand, forest cutting quota may hinder the farmers' investment and is not conducive to the improvement of the long-term wood supply capacity. This paper uses the methods of statistical description and empirical strategies to analyze the changes before and after the forest tenure reform, including the changes of size and volume of forest resources, timber-land investment changes and timber output changes.Secondly, based on the survey of provincial (8 province of collective forest area) and village level data (Jiangxi province), this paper use OLS and SUR to demonstrate the effect of forestry tenure right index on the size and volume of whole forest, timber and artificial forest, respectively. It has been proved to be a positive correlation between the forestry tenure rights and the timber size and volume, which tests the fact that the forest tenure reform can greatly promote the increase of the forest stock volume, thereby increasing the supply capacity of the collective forest timber.Thirdly, based on the survey data of Jiangxi province in 2005 and 2010, this paper use LPM, Probit, Logit and Tobit model to investigate the timber land input derived from farmers. By relatively studying the farmers'decisions and behaviors, it has been revealed that several factors, such as tenure rights, forest certification as well as self management, will motivate the farmer's input, while other factors, such as forest cutting quota, will counteract the input motivation.Finally, based on the village-level and household-level data, I also make an elaborate summary statistical analysis of the changes about forest quota index across time. It has been shown that, at least in our sample villages, the existent forest cutting restriction system still limit the timber harvesting for farmers, but the bamboo harvesting is no longer restricted in practice. At the same time, based on the two-period data of Jiangxi Province, I take use of Probit model to analyze the impact of farmer-owned forest tenure right index, the proportion of forest-land certification and the proportion of self-manage timber land on wood and bamboo harvesting decisions. In further, I use FE and RE models to investigate whether all these factors would equally affect the farmer's cutting behaviors in practice, not merely the decisions. I found that the collective forest reform do promote the actual timber production and bamboo yield, the greater the autonomy of the farmers woodland operation, the more likely the operation of the timber, while with the under-forest right of using non-timber resources, farmers will delay timber harvesting, and forest cutting quota system, at the same time, has never been tested any significant effect on the specific amount of timber harvesting. On the basis of empirical research, alternative policies of changing the farmer's timber harvesting decision-making and logging practices may reasonably be:to protect the integrity of the long-term stability of the timber forest rights, to promote family-run bamboo mode.