| The diversification function of forest which not only improves the livelihoods of rural households,but also gives the ecological value is more obvious than agriculture.There has been a considerable change of households’forest management activities and more serious extensive forestry management since the rapid growth of off-farming employment and out-migration from rural areas.It’s argued that forestland large-scale management has been seen as the main approach for central government to improve the efficiency and utilization of forestland and get supports by a series of forest policies.According this,does it mean that large-scale forest management is much greater than the small scale forest management in forestland economic and ecological benefit?With the increase of rural labors migration,how the off-farm works and hired labors effect the forest management benefit,behaviors and decision-making of households with different scales?And,is there heterogeneity of behaviors and decision-making for forest management between households with different scales?To answer these questions clearly can help improving the forest policies and support the sustainable forest management in southern collective forst area.Based on the theories of New Economics Labors Migration(NELM)and Principal-agent,this study built the theoretical framework of how off-farm work and hire labors effect on theforest economic and ecological benefit of foresters,then it used 450 household surveys from Zhejiang,Fujian and Jiangxi provinces in southern collective forest area and the Chinese fir as the case tree to compare and analyze the difference between pr:ivate economic and social ecological benefit of foresters with different forestland scales.It used econometric models to analyze how off-farm works and hired labor effect on the forest value of foresters with different forestland scales,and how off-farm work impact on the foresters’ forest management decision-making and behaviors from off-farm works to find the reason that why these heterogeneity impacts happened.Finally,it gave some conclusions and recommendations that improving the policies for foresters with different forestland scales.(1)There is a difference in management objective between large scale and common foresters.Larger scale foresters usually raise the mature forest with lower planting intensity,on the contrary,common foresters usually raise small dimension forest with a higher planting intensity.Also,the site quality of large scale foresters is higher than common foresters,at average.(2)The forest management cost per unit area of larger scale foresters is higher than common forester,however,the cost per unit output of larger scale foresters is lower than common forester.The reason is that larger scale foresters should afford a higher hired labor and forestland lease cost.Larger scale foresters usually paid more attention on the thinning which induced a higher thinning cost,then common foresters focus on the a higher planting intensity which induced a higher planting cost.However,the cost per unit output of larger scale foresters is lower than common forester,which means that there is a scale economy in Chinese fir production.(3)The timber volume and carbon sequestration value per unit area of larger scale foresters are higher than the common foresters’.But the average net benefit per unit area of larger sale foresters is lower than common foresters due to a much higher forestland lease and hired labors cost.The volume,profit and carbon sequestration value per unit area of households managed in Fujian provinces are higher than other two provinces.(4)Through the estimation of econometrical models,it’s argued that increasing of off-farm works for common foresters made negative impact on the private economic and social ecological benefit of their forest management,which the migration effect from these foresters’ offfarm works play the predominant role in them;However,increasing of off-farm works for large scale foresters made positive impact on the private economic and social ecological benefit of their forest management,which the income effect of these larger scale foresters make the important effect in them,respectively.It’s proved that it’s necessary to encourage develop the larger scale forest management and design the relative incentive policies for it under the rapidly migration of rural labors for off-farm works nowadays.(5)According to the estimate results of econometrical models,due to the risk hazards problem,it’s suggested that the increasing proportion of hired labors gave a negative effect on the forest management of large scale foresters in the case of a certain labor supply.(6)The remittance from off-farm works does not improve the two forest groups’ forest investment,and even decrease the their willingness of contracting forestland.Through the estimation of econometrical models,it’s argued that the migration effect of off-farm works gave a negative effect on forest investment of households with different scales,especially for the common households.Also,this migration effect made a negative effect on the forestland transfer area and willingess of households.(7)There is a heterogeneity impact on harvest decision-making of households with different scales.It improved the common households to make a harvest decision earlier and large scale households to make a harvest decision later,respectively.Through the estimation of econometrical models,it’s obviously found that the migration and income effect of off-farm works gave a different impact on the harvesting decision of large scale and common foresters,respectively.The forest rotation age which common foresters expected will be much earlier to the optimal forest rotation age by the increasing migration effect of off-farm works,they lose their patience in forest investment when balancing the long rotation age of timber management and relatively faster return from off-farm jobs.However,off-farming works help large scale foresters lengthen the forest harvesting age,because the remittance effect of off-farm works loose their budget constraints easily.Above on the previous findings,this study gave some recommendations as follows,it’s necessary to motivate the large scale management for improving the commercial forest management in southern collective area;to improve the financial policies and modern forest management mechanism to increase the input-output of forest management;to make transit from large scale economy to division economy and from large scale forestland management to large scale service management in forest management.Based on comparison between the difference of forest management value for households with different forestland scales,this study discussed how off-farm employment and hire labors effect on the forest management value of households with different forestland scales,analyzed the difference and change of decision-making and behaviors on foest management of households with different scales,and how decision-making and behaviors of households impact on the forest management value.It gave a comprehensive approach and framework to analyze the issues about large scale forest management,and the conclusion of this study gives a clear idea about developing large scale forest management and designing relative forest policies under the further implementation of forest tenure reform and the forest becoming an important role in national ecological security. |
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