Contextualizing forestry discourses and normative frameworks towards sustainable forest management in contemporary China

Abstract

SUMMARY The paper reviews China's forestry discourses and normative framework, providing contextualization of China's forestry norms and legislation, and considers how they were produced via the struggles of actors, in particular in the forestry sector at the national level. The normative framework in China represents the common needs of forestry development in a particular context and reflects the knowledge and underdstanding of forest management of individuals in the forestry sector together with their needs, power, and social status. Thus, many policy statements appear to be either cohesive or contradictory. In particular, at national level, the meanings of sustainable forestry management has been shaped by the forestry sector's own political and social struggles.