Carbon Trade, Forestry Land Rights, and Farmers’ Livelihood in Rural Communities in China

Abstract

This chapter focuses on carbon trade, forestry land rights, and farmers’ livelihoods in rural Chinese communities. At present, China is establishing and developing a voluntary forest carbon sinks market, a process associated with forestry property transactions, as part of the domestic portfolio of greenhouse gas (GHG) emission reduction activities through market-based mechanisms. With the land property right reforms in China, the use rights of forestland were assigned to households. While forestry carbon trading is suitable for large- or middle-scale forest farms, households with a small piece of forestland find it difficult to participate in this carbon trade. Thus, China’s government has combined the forest carbon trade policy and forest rights reform in order to realise the goal of climate change adoption, mitigation and poverty reduction. The implementation of these policies has had a great impact on rural communities in China. This chapter introduces the background and development process of China’s forest carbon trade, analyses the impacts of forest carbon trade and forestland rights exchange on local households, based on the case studies in Guangxi and Zhejiang province, and provides some policy suggestions on how to facilitate the carbon trade and gain more benefit for local rural communities.