Study On The Effects, Problems And Countermeasures Of Forestry Property Rights' Reform In The Collective Forest Areas In Jiangxi Province

Property right is the most pivotal and important problem in the study of economysystem. Because forest resource has significant ecological and economic value, its'character of public goods and externalities determine the particularity of the property rightform of forest, woodland and wood. The rationality of forestry property right system caneffect the development of forestry and its' interrelated industry, the development of socialeconomy in collective forest area, the farmers' production activity and their income leveland ultimately effect the realization of forest sustainable management in China. Since thefoundation of the People' s Republic of China, the property rights of woodland and woodin collective forest area have experienced complicated changes. Under certain socialbackground, the reform of each phase took a positive role, and also had its' limitation insystem arrangement. With the strengthen of the market economy system reform in China,many problems in forest property right system at present (i.e. the main body of theproperty right is not clear; the right, responsibility and profit is not corresponding; the rightof proceeds can not be realized; and the implement of the policy is not normative etc.)emerged increasingly. As one of the important collective forest areas of southern China,Jiangxi province has began to reform since 2004, the central content of which is clarifyingthe property right, lightening the tax and fee, setting free the management andstandardizing the transfer of property rights. Though some effects have been acquired, theparticularity and complexity of the forestry property right system have objectivelydetermined that the reform is a long term process, which need constantly improved.Therefore, this study began with the understanding of basic property right theory, analyzedthe background, implement process, general effect and existent problems of the forestryproperty rights' reform in the collective forest area of Jiangxi province. What's more,taking village-level research as an emphasis, using participatory rural appraisal method,two-month investigation was done on the spot in three typical sample villages (Yongfeng,Shangyuan and Longgui). Eventually some conclusions were obtained as follows:(1)Forestry property right has the common characters of property right which areexclusiveness, separability and negotiability. Meantime it has some specialties such as therelevancy of its objects, special restriction and externalities etc. The forestry propertyrights' reform in the southern collective forest areas, which has both characters of inductivesystem transform and compulsive system transform, was caused by some factors included the scarcity of the forest resource, the low efficiency of the present system and the changeof the system environment and so on.(2)The leading function of the government, the actual implement of the forestrydepartment and the direct participation of farmers are important guarantees for the forestryproperty rights' reform in Jiangxi province, in which the farmers' upholding rate reaches100%, the participation rate and the settlement rate of the property right dissension areboth above 90%.(3)The effect of the forestry property rights' reform is noticeable, represented in theaspects that the farmer's standard of living have advanced, the enthusiasm of forestproduction have increased, the country society have become more harmonious etc. By theend of 2005, the clarification rate of property rights has reached 85% in the whole province;contrasted with the last year, the farmer's average forestry net income has increased by28.4%; the occurrence number of forest case has decreased by 45%; the forestation areareached 219,000 hm~2 in 2005.(4)There are some differences in the effects of reform in different areas. The more thefarmers depend on the woodland, the more noticeable the effects of reform are, meanwhilethe more serious the problems are. However, if the farmers are less dependent on thewoodland, whose consciousnesses are more active, the enthusiasm of trading the woodlandproperty right is much higher.(5)Although the farmers' enthusiasm for forest production has increased, and theforestry cooperation organization as well as the forestry industry have been promoted bythe forestry property rights' reform, the traditional management model with the charactersof extensive type has not being changed yet.(6)To deepen the forestry property rights' reform, it is urgent to perfect presentsystems, such as the assets evaluation of the forest resource, the transfer system of forestryproperty rights, the management system of forest cutting quota, the compensation andmanagement system of public welfare forest etc.Therefore, on the basis of understanding the desires of the farmers, combined with thepresent course of the supporting reforms in Jiangxi province, some suggestions are made inorder to accomplish the reform purpose, including promoting forest sustainablemanagement, ensuring the farmers' legal right, and increasing the farmers' income, asfollows: the cutting management system, which takes the village-level forest managementplan as its core, should be researched and implemented as soon as possible; theconstruction of forestry cooperation organization should be leaded actively; the policy andlaw about the transfer of forestry property rights shoud be perfected; the compensation andmanagement system of public welfare forest should be perfected, and the specific measuresabout the compensation standard and way, the source of compensation fund, the specificway of utilizing and managing the compensation fund should be set down; the construction of the long-term supervision and safeguard mechanism should be strengthened.