Research On The Influencing Factors Of Forest Farmers' Behavior Willingness Under The Background Of Collective Forest Rights System Reform

As one of the most important types of natural resources,forest land has an extremely important impact on the economic development of a country and residents lives.Collective forest land has always been an important production factor and a land resource in China.Since the founding of the People’s Republic of China,the collective forest tenure system has experienced four substantial changes,but there are still problems such as unclear property rights and unclear business entities,which seriously restricts the development of China’s forestry.Based on this,the Communist Party of China carried out a project to reform the collective forest tenure system with clear property rights and registration,and made certification to the specific people as the most vital part of the project in 2003,which was implemented nationwide in 2008.The reform of the collective forest rights system enables the collective forest land use rights,management rights and ownership of trees to be implemented to the farmers.The purpose is to establish the farmer’s main business status and enable the farmers to obtain lands for production,thus stimulating enthusiasm of farmers for contracting forest land.This study took Chengde,Hebei Province as a research area,and selected forest farmers and government workers at all levels in three administrative districts as the research objects.Questionnaire survey and semi-structured interview method were used,and 533 valid questionnaires and 46 semi-structured interviews were obtained in this study.At the same time,corresponding government documents and statistics were obtained.Based on the theory of property rights and the theory of farmer behavior,the study researched on the status quo and existing problems of collective forest tenure reform in typical ecological regions through the combination of case analysis and empirical analysis.The influencing factors of forest farmers’ willingness to transfer forests and to plant forests under the background of institutional changes was discussed in order to provide reasonable policy recommendations for the reformation of forest tenure in the future.The research showed that the regional collective forest reform has a phenomenon of ineffective interaction with the participants in the process of development,which mainly leaded to the low awareness of the forestry farmers towards participation in the collective forest reform.The survey found that forest farmers have a high demand for forest rights mortgage loans.At the same time,due to the difficulty in defining the boundaries of forest land,the serious problems left over by history and the backward management system of forest land,the forest farmers have disputed over forest rights and the mediation rate was low.In addition,the forest farmers’ willingness to title the forest land was very high after the collective forest reform,which was significantly related to some factors,such as basic characteristics of forest farmers(age,gender,cultural level).forest land use rights cognition,inheritance rights cognition and mortgage cognition.Therefore,broadening the channels of publication,strengthening guidance,and promoting the deepening of collective forest reform through the cooperation of the state,government and financial institutions are all effective ways to ensure the implementation of forest land rights.By the use of econometric model,the influencing factors of forest farmers’willingness to transfer forest rights and afforestation willingness were studied.(1)After analysing of the willingness to transfer forest rights,the study found that the forest farmers’ willingness to transfer forest rights was generally high,which was significantly related to some factors,such as basic characteristics of forest farmers(age,gender,cultural level),income status in the past five years,forest land ownership cognition,policy and legal understanding,forest rights disputes,and the contracts.The forest farmers have a large deviation from the ownership of forest land and the law.Therefore,it is recommended that the government should raise the willingness of the middle-aged and elderly people to transfer forest rights,increase the rate of mediation disputes,and strengthen guidance and improve the forest farmers’correct understanding of forest rights.At the same time,it is necessary to strengthen the publication of forest rights transfer policies and regulations,and reissue the new version of the forest tenure certificate in time to promote the development of forest rights in later period.(2)After analysing of afforestation willingness,The study found that forest farmers had higher willingness to afforest,mainly because of the consideration of protecting the ecological environment and achieving sustainable development.According to the results of the econometric model,some basic characteristics of forest farmers(age3 gender,total family population),income status in the past five years,forest vegetation change cognition and inheritance rights cognition were important explanatory variables of forest farmers’ willingness to afforest.Therefore,it is recommended that the government should strengthen the forest farmers’ awareness of eco-environmental protection,increase forestry support policies,encourage small-scale farmers to switch to cooperative operations,use financial ways to help forest farmers afforestation,and strengthen the supervision of forestry subsidies,thus increasing the forest farmers’willingness to afforest.