A Study Of Farmers' Forest Management Behaviors Under The Constraints Of Logging Quota System

The administrative institution on cutting quota is one of the most important institutions in China's forestry administration, aiming to reach the goal of Rational Forest Cutting, Timing Renovation of the Cropped Land, Renewal and Expansion of Forestry Resources, and Giving Full Play to the Ecological, Economic and Social Benefits of Forest. Along with the changes on forestry resources and forestry economy while the institutional reform on forestry property, in which forestry households allocate forestry resource property rights, replaces the collectives by households as the new major stakeholders of forestry management, the debates on the administrative institution on cutting quota becomes increasingly fierce and the calls for reforms on the institution get much attention. It is a topic of significance to discuss the impacts of the administrative institution on cutting quota on forestry farmers in the context of changed features of major stakeholders in forestry management. The contents of the paper are as follows.Chapter 1 discusses the background, research objectives, contents and methodologies of the paper, points out that major data come from questionnaire survey from 500 forestry households of Fujian, and summarizes the innovations and weaknesses of the paper.Chapter 2 describes the history on changes of administrative institution of forestry cutting, indicating that it is a process of amendments and improvements along with the changes of macro and micro environments. From the execution results of administrative institution on cutting quota during the 11th Five-year Plan, the institution has negative impacts on household planting and cutting activities. How this institution affected forestry management activities of households is of major interest of the paper.Chapter 3 reviews the theories on economic activities of households and categorizes forestry management activities of households into planting, protection and cutting. Chapter 4 to Chapter 7 studies the impacts of administrative institution on cutting quota on these three activities respectively. It is obvious that the institution directly affects cutting activities of households; therefore, cutting activity is the focus of the research and Chapter 4 and 5 explores this topic from the perspectives of income and cost.Chapter 4 analyzes the impacts of administrative institution on cutting quota on household income. By analyzing the affecting factors of wood price and cutting volume, combined with survey data from the households, the paper finds that the positive impacts of the institution on household income are that delayed cutting time increases the output and that restricted supply may result in the rise in wood prices. The negative impacts are that delayed cutting income brings about investment revenue loses. Theoretical and empirical data indicate that the interaction of positive and negative impacts result in insignificant impacts of the institution on forestry income of households.Chapter 5 discusses cutting cost, another variable affecting profit maximization of households. Based on the surveys from households and forestry administration departments, the paper summarizes the operational procedures under the institution, in which there are 4 phases and 17 steps, and indicates that households incur costs include costs directly related to the institution, costs related to the institutional changes, and costs that are irrelevant to the institution. In order to evade all the costs, households may choose cutting without license. In order to decrease information costs directly related to the institution, households may choose cutting activities in the form of selling the whole forest land. Households with social capitals and rich forestry experiences may choose cutting under their own discretion. Due to the differences in information costs, different households have different profits and disposable income, affecting the cutting activities and total forestry income distribution.Based on the survey data, Chapter 6 empirically analyzes the impacts of administrative institution on cutting quota on household planting activities. Based on the preliminary survey results, there are 3 categories/10 types of affecting factors on household planting activities. Factor analysis method shows that the institution has minor impact on planting willingness but major impact on household planting activities. The areas of economic forest and bamboo displays an increase tendency and the overall timber forest an decrease tendency but the area of fast-growing and high-yield categories of timber forest like eucalyptus are on the increase.Chapter 7 analyzes the impacts of institution on protection of young forest, cutting against protection, guard against fire and theft, and pest prevention and cure. The paper finds that the institution has no direct impact on protection of young timber forest and has no impact on cutting against protection. Households'decision-making on cutting against protection is affected by the technical procedure, wood production cost, and market prices of short wood and small-diameter wood. Under the stringent technical procedure of cutting against protection, households tend to prolong the starting period of cutting against protection and make the decision to Keep the Big and Small while Cutting. For the perspectives of three Guards, the institution delays major cutting age of timber forest, resulting in higher costs on pest prevention and cure and guard against forest fire and theft.The last chapter of the paper summarizes the findings of the paper. Based on the finding, the paper put forward 5 solutions on cutting administrative institution. These include the amendments of forestry legislation, simplification of cutting administrative procedure, lowering of household information costs in cutting, standardization of technical procedure of cutting administration, and the trial of discretionary power.