Performance Evaluation Of China's Western Region Reforesting Policy And Institutional Innovation,

The policy of conversion from cropland to forest,which was first tested in Sichuan,Gansu and Shaanxi provinces of west China since 1999 and then had been applied to the whole country by 2002,has made a remarkable effect on advancing the western development,improving the environment,increasing the investment,expanding the consumption,promoting the economy sustainable development and making overall social progresses in west China.But,it is still a long-term and hard task to consolidate the achievements from conversion of cropland to forest and resolve the living problems for the peasants without farmland.Though the local environment has been improved,the stability for the environment in the areas that has just returned cropland to forest is quite fragile.As most of the trees are quite young,economic benefits can not be achieved during a short period.In order to resolve the problems with the conversion of cropland to forest in west China,a new conception of market compensation mode is proposed in the thesis.The core system for the conversion of cropland to forest - the ecological compensation system is redesigned and innovated in this conception on the base of the evaluation through various methods as follows:field investigation,hierarchy analysis,cost-benefit approach and shadow price method.The principles in regional economics,ecological economics and institutional economics are also employed and applied in this thesis.The thesis is divided into six parts:The introduction presents the backgrounds and the significance of this study.The current research status and the innovations are also covered in this part.Chapter 1 presents the influence of the designing systems on the ecological environment in west China.The designing systems mainly include the following three systems:the rural land system,the policy of eco-compensation and the conversion of cropland to forest.A close relationship between the systems and ecological environment are achieved with the analysis.Then,the objective and the theme for the thesis are presented.Chapter 2 analyzes the problems with the applying the policy of conversion from cropland to forest in view of economics,providing theoretical foundations for the following chapters.The problems such as the target and the benefit among the main bodies,the game behavior between the main bodies,the eco-compensation,the arrangement of property right systems,etc.are covered in this part.Chapter 3 studies the current status of economy and society in west China,the significance of the conversion from cropland to forest for western development and the progress situation of the twelve provinces in west China.This chapter is the base for the whole study.A new index system is proposed in chapter 4.In addition,the new designed index system is applied to Gannan Tibetan prefecture.The performance of conversion from cropland to forest is evaluated through hierarchy analysis method,on the base of which the problems caused by the conversion of cropland to forest are generated.This chapter is a connection in the thesis,which is not only an evaluation for the policy of conversion from cropland to forest,but also a foundation for the new systems design.Chapter 5 establishes the market compensation mode according to the current policy of conversion from cropland to forest and the influence of market on the ecological construction.The guarantee mechanism for peasants' benefit under this mode is also studied in this chapter.This chapter is of the most importance among all the parts,as both the theoretical innovation and the empirical research are concentrated in it.Major conclusions are summarized as follows:1.The system design poses a remarkable influence on the ecological environment;2.For the sake of achieving the expected effect of ecological construction implementation,the people's benefit must be the ultimate target while designing the polices and systems;3.It is an innovation for the introduction of market compensation, which makes good effects on disposing resources,guarantying peasants' benefit,consolidating the achievement from returning cropland and etc;4.A series of mechanisms,such as benefit safeguard mechanism, technology supporting mechanism,industry supporting mechanism and etc,must be included in the new systems to guarantee the peasants' benefit.The innovations of this thesis are as follows:1.The influence of the rural land systems on the behavior of land management in China is studied by years since 1949.meanwhile,This behavior of peasants has an influence on the ecological environment;2.According to the analysis of the target benefit between the government and the peasant,a new evaluation system is proposed on the base of the evaluation for current policy of conversion from cropland to forest,combining the benefits of the government and the peasant;3.A new evaluation model for the effect of conversion from cropland to forest is established employing hierarchy analysis method. Reasonable conclusions have been obtained applying the new evaluation model to a typical case.4.Market means are introduced to the policy of conversion from cropland to forest,and the problems are well resolved in the establishment of market compensation system.The study may afford both theory and practice support for the further implementation of the conversion from cropland to forest in west China.Moreover,the investigation method employing multi-subjects is expected to promote the construction and development of ecological economics.