How Societal Values Determine the Local Use of Forest Resources—Findings from the Rural Community Kegong (Northwest Yunnan, China)

Michael Nassl,Jörg Löffler

doi:10.3390/su11123447

Abstract

The transition from net deforestation to net reforestation in China has received much scientific attention, in the hope that, by understanding the underlying drivers and processes, it might be reproduced in other regions of the world. The scientific literature has suggested that this process was driven by the creation of off-farm opportunities and huge state afforestation programs by economic growth. Recent publications, however, have noted a lack of inclusion of local dynamics in this analysis. We used the social-ecological interactions (SEI) framework, designed for the assessment of ecosystem services in socio-ecological systems, to trace the causes and patterns of the local use of forest biomass in a village in Northwest Yunnan. Our results suggest that societal values, in particular, are key to understanding the local resource use underlying the forest transition in Yunnan. However, societal values have been neglected, both in the analysis of forest transition as well as in social-ecological systems research, in general.

Highlights

In the 2005 Global Forest Resources Assessment, the FAO first reported that the steady decrease in forest area in Asia, which had persisted for many decades, had been halted [1]
Rudel et al [7] pointed out two major forest transition pathways, in order to explain the shift from net loss to net increase in forest areas: (a) The economic development pathway, where modernization, urbanization, and economic development ‘pull’ farm laborers off their land, which are subsequently abandoned and reforested; and (b) the forest scarcity pathway, where scarcity of forest resources and ecosystem services prompts afforestation and reforestation
Scholars have emphasized the important influence of economic growth creating off-farm opportunities [8], yet recent publications have shown that the forest transition in China cannot be explained by Rudel’s economic development pathway alone; it, rather, is a mixture of severe natural disasters and consequential development-related modernization and political economy change, which prompted a change of governmental attitude towards forests, leading to the adaptation of forest policies [2,6]

Summary

Introduction

In the 2005 Global Forest Resources Assessment, the FAO first reported that the steady decrease in forest area in Asia, which had persisted for many decades, had been halted [1]. Scholars have emphasized the important influence of economic growth creating off-farm opportunities [8], yet recent publications have shown that the forest transition in China cannot be explained by Rudel’s economic development pathway alone; it, rather, is a mixture of severe natural disasters and consequential development-related modernization and political economy change, which prompted a change of governmental attitude towards forests, leading to the adaptation of forest policies [2,6] These adjusted national forest policies that were initiated in the late 1970s and culminated with the Six Key National Forest Programs (SKNFPs) in 1998. These programs covered 97% of Chinese counties and targeted over 100 million ha of land for forestation [10]

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion